A Study in Siblings
by Juliana Brandagamba
Summary: WWII AU in which Sherlock Holmes gets some new siblings in the form of two evacuees. He might need them when Mycroft is conscripted.
1. The Watsons

**Ooh, this is interesting. I've never really written an AU before. I imagine this idea has been done already - no, I think it has, at least the concept of the Sherlock cast being plonked in Britain in the Second World War. I wanted to do a bit of a study in siblingry (is that a word? It should be a word) and this idea came to me. I hope you enjoy it. Do let me know what you think, and you might just get the other chapters at some point. ;) I'm sorry, that's probably bribery. But I do have actual plans for this story, which is probably a first.**

* * *

They were very insistent, these young women who gave away children door-to-door. They would go forth with great long strides that their entourage of youngsters could scarcely match, before halting at a promising-looking house and asking that the residents take in an evacuee. One of the children would be pushed forwards and into the house, and essentially forgotten about. The objective was to get rid of all the children before sundown, and they were doing a pretty good job so far in this little rural town.

Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes watched this scene from the top bedroom, which belonged to Sherlock, standing on his bed so as to get a good look out of the window. They could see the top of the young woman's felt hat, and the scruffy heads of all the London kids who shuffled after their "mother duck". The group was coming closer to their house, and had for the moment stopped at old Mrs Davison's cottage just down the street. Mrs Davison would most definitely take in an evacuee, and whoever got her would be very lucky indeed.

'Do you think they'll come here?' asked Sherlock at length.

'It's highly likely,' replied Mycroft vaguely.

'Do you think Mummy and Daddy will take in an evacuee?' Sherlock continued.

'We have a big house and a spare room,' Mycroft said in a resigned sort of voice. 'They'll be obliged to.'

'I hope we get a quiet one,' Sherlock said, raising one eyebrow. Then, as if he had only just noticed: 'What are you doing in my room anyway? Get out!'

Mycroft smirked a little and left; Sherlock however did not leave his post at the window, and continued to watch as the little crowd snaked up their street, closer and closer to their house.

* * *

It was Mrs Holmes who answered the knock at the door. There were already two children thrust onto the step, a scrawny sort of lad with a crop of faded blond hair, and a girl with hair as short as a boy's.

'Good morning,' said Mrs Holmes to the woman beyond these children.

'Good morning, Mrs –'

'Holmes,' said Mrs Holmes.

'Good morning, Mrs Holmes. Would you perhaps be so kind as to take in a pair of evacuees?'

She gave the two children a little push from behind. They staggered forwards a little, but with great reluctance.

'These are the Watson siblings. John and Harriet. They won't be separated, so I thought, seeing as yours is a big house –'

There was a rather short pause. Mrs Holmes, like her sons, had seen the group coming up the street, indeed she had heard about the evacuation a while back, and she had already made up her mind about whether to take in any. She had decided that she ought to, out of pure kindness, and a wish to help.

'Very well,' said Mrs Holmes. 'Come in, John and Harriet Watson.'

'It's Harry,' said the girl defiantly.

The woman sighed. 'Harriet, don't make a show of yourself. You have to behave at the Holmes's.' Then, turning to Mrs Holmes: 'I'm sorry, Mrs Holmes. Harriet Watson is a bit of a handful, but she can be tamed.'

'Don't worry,' said Mrs Holmes, smiling suddenly. 'I'm quite used to handfuls. Thank you, madam. Come in, children. Would you like some hot chocolate?'

* * *

The smell of hot chocolate bubbling on the Aga brought the two Holmes brothers clattering downstairs. Chocolate was scarce these days, and hot chocolate probably indicated that they had a guest. Or, considering what they had witnessed from the window, they had a visitor who was a bit more permanent than a guest. Anyway, they didn't much care for the visitors, only for the hot chocolate, which they didn't want to miss out on.

'Sherlock! Mycroft! What have I told you about running downstairs?' Mrs Holmes yelled from the kitchen.

'Sorry, Mummy,' they said as one, in a bit of an un-apologetic tone of voice.

'May we have hot chocolate too?' asked Sherlock.

'I was just about to call you; you need to learn a bit of patience,' Mrs Holmes scolded them; then, seeing that their eyes were now fixed on the two children who sat at the dining-table, she explained: 'These are two evacuees from London. I've said I'll take them in.'

Mycroft and Sherlock exchanged glances. They had guessed that they might get an evacuee. They hadn't really fancied two.

There was a young lad there, a boy of perhaps Sherlock's age – that is, fourteen. The girl next to him, though she didn't resemble him greatly, was evidently his elder sister, and something of a tomboy. Her face was fierce and she seemed to be highly protective of her brother. It probably wouldn't be wise to get between them.

'These are the Watson siblings,' Mrs Holmes continued. 'This is John, and this is Harriet.'

'Harry,' the girl corrected her automatically.

'And John, Harriet, these are my children, Sherlock and Mycroft.'

John immediately stood to shake hands with them; Sherlock and Mycroft returned the handshakes with a reluctance they tried to hide.

'Oh, don't be shy,' Mrs Holmes scolded them.

She knew, of course, that Sherlock and Mycroft were not in the least shy. Both of them had been as small children, but both of them had grown out of that phase, and instead become misanthropes, which was almost certainly worse. When she told them to stop being shy, it was because it was easier to tell the people that than the truth. Sherlock and Mycroft knew the drill by now, and didn't object.

'Can we have hot chocolate now?' asked Sherlock, giving up on any further interaction with the evacuees. Mrs Holmes sighed and plonked four mugs on the table, and the four children drank their cocoa without saying a word to each other.

* * *

'What do you think of them?'

Sherlock looked up from the rug on which he was sitting and cuddling Redbeard. Mycroft was studying him in mild interest from the sofa, his eyes half on the book between his hands – something dull about political science, as far as Sherlock could tell.

'The Watsons?' Sherlock hesitated a moment, and then smiled. 'Harriet – Harry – is a tomboy with a liking for chemistry. She's cleverer than she lets on. John's, well, John's _normal_.' Mycroft chuckled at this. 'He's also a scientist. Probably interested in medicine. The Watson family is rather less settled than ours. They haven't mentioned their mother, only their father, but I don't think their mother's dead. I think they've divorced.' He said this last part quietly and carefully. 'Theirs is a poor household, but not excessively so. Their father does manual labour, probably. They live in a terraced house –'

Mycroft halted him then. 'Your deductions are getting better,' he said, 'but you should use _probably_ and _I think_ less. People won't trust you as much if you don't sound definite. – Anyway, I didn't mean to ask you for deductions. I had already made plenty myself. No, I meant – do you think you can survive with them in the house?'

Sherlock blinked at this unexpected question, and didn't reply.

He had survived all of his fourteen years with Mycroft and his parents in the house. Hell, he had already survived three years of boarding-school, living with students and teachers he really didn't like. But he didn't much like having to play a third sibling of these evacuees. He supposed he could put up with it, if they didn't disturb him, or, worse, try to be _friends_ with him.

He did not need to voice as much to Mycroft. Mycroft already knew. Mycroft understood, because he was exactly the same. Well, almost.


	2. By the River

The first night was difficult for the two evacuees. Harry and John had been given their own rooms for the first time in their lives, and they weren't sure if they liked this arrangement; John clambered that night into Harry's bed, because he couldn't sleep without her in the same room. He promised, though, that he would sleep in his own bed the next day. After all, he was fourteen, and furthermore had a remarkable ability to adapt to change.

The next day was a fine and clear one, which naturally Sherlock and Mycroft didn't notice at first, because they were both holed up in their rooms reading. They hadn't the least idea what John and Harry might be up to, and didn't much care. Therefore they were both of them immensely annoyed when their mother shouted to them up the stairs:

'Sherlock! Mycroft! It's a nice day; do you want to take the Watsons for a walk?'

'No,' they both shouted back.

'Oh, don't be difficult,' Mrs Holmes scolded them. 'John just told me he wanted to go outside, explore a bit. Take them down to the pool. They'll like that. And Redbeard needs a walk too.'

"The pool" was just down the river, and was a place where the river widened and curved lazily around a beach, so that it seemed more like a lake. Mycroft and Sherlock had both liked to sit down there and read as young children, or to paddle or play pirates or whatever. Nowadays they much preferred their bedrooms.

The Holmes brothers sighed, and, grabbing their coats, came reluctantly downstairs. John and Harry were already there, dressed in spare waterproofs and comfortable shoes; Harry, they noticed, who had yesterday worn a dress that didn't much suit her, was today wearing a pair of trousers that Sherlock noticed were his. Mycroft picked up Redbeard's lead and fitted it to the dog's collar.

'Come back for lunch, won't you?' Mrs Holmes said; they nodded and set off.

* * *

The path down to the river ran through a small patch of woodland; Mycroft and Sherlock walked briskly among the trees, but the Watsons lingered behind, dawdling, looking up at the sun-spangled canopy as if they hadn't seen trees before.

'Oh, of course,' murmured Sherlock, 'they've never left London, have they?'

Mycroft just raised one eyebrow and told them to hurry up.

They arrived at last at the little river beach, and John and Harry immediately raced down the bank to dip their toes in the clear water. Now the Holmeses lagged behind: the pool no longer held anything new or exciting for them.

Harry squealed as her toes touched the water, which was unexpectedly cold considering that the day was as hot as if it was the middle of summer, rather than the edge of autumn. John grinned at her brief weakness, for he had scarcely reacted to the temperature of the water, finding it quite relaxing to feel it swirling over his feet.

Sherlock threw himself on the sand and watched the water swirl by, thinking deeply. Mycroft clambered up to a low branch on a nearby tree and did likewise, pulling out his political science book, which he had brought with him, wondering when the Watsons would get bored of the river. Seeing as they had never paddled in a river before, it could be some time.

John emerged first, and padded up the beach to where Sherlock was still deep in thought; he spoke the Holmes boy's name, but he did not respond.

'Sherlock,' he said again. 'Sherlock, do you have the towel?'

Sherlock started somewhat violently, and stared at him for more than a moment before extracting a tea-towel from his rucksack. He had been forced to bring it for the purpose of drying feet. John thanked him and sat beside him, running the towel over his feet and between his toes, trying to get the sand off, but instead just abrading his skin a bit, because sand is stubborn like that.

'Have you finished paddling?' asked Sherlock, only a little desperately.

'Yes,' replied John. 'But I quite wanted to explore the woods, if that's all right.'

Sherlock glared at him. It wasn't all right, but if he didn't let John explore a bit he would be told off. 'If you must,' he shrugged.

'You seemed quite happy sitting there thinking,' John ventured, not unkindly.

'I was building my mind palace. You disturbed me,' Sherlock said then. 'I can't think properly here. The river is too loud.'

John fell silent and listened, but could scarcely hear the flow of the river, nor any other noise save for the occasional birdsong. He supposed that Sherlock's hearing must have been more acute than his. Then he said: 'Mind palace?'

'You wouldn't understand,' Sherlock said dismissively.

'Does Mycroft have one too?' John asked then, indicating the older boy, who had closed his book and his eyes, and looked almost as if he had gone to sleep up the tree.

'I imagine so,' shrugged Sherlock. 'It's not as good as mine though.'

John laughed, and, as he had finished drying his feet, handed the towel back to Sherlock and thrust his feet into his shoes, and then disappeared into the woods. A moment later Harry came and quickly dried her feet, before following him, shouting out to him and laughing purely, almost childishly. They had dissolved into some sort of game of tig, from the sound of it.

Sherlock leaned back on the sand again, and shot a glance over to Mycroft, who was still lost in his daydream. Did Mycroft have a mind palace? He supposed he must have. It was Mycroft who had suggested the idea to him, though Sherlock had invented the term _mind palace_. Was it as impressive as his? He didn't like to think so. He didn't like to think that Mycroft was better at anything than he was, though he knew in his heart that that wasn't true.

His eyes fell again on John, who was scrambling through a nearby clearing with Harry hot on his trail. They looked so happy, so childish, so innocent. Like siblings were meant to be.

Sherlock sighed and told himself that he mustn't feel envious. He called to Redbeard, who was splashing around in the river still, and dried off the dog, before snuggling up to him a little. It was bizarre. Sometimes he thought that he didn't need friends, and yet he didn't know where he would be without the old dog. He liked to think that he could manage on his own, but even Mycroft was indispensable sometimes.

A thought occurred to him, and, hesitantly, he called out to Mycroft.

'My,' he said, using a nickname that had been buried for months, years now. 'My, do you want to play pirates?'

'You're too old for pirates,' Mycroft said without opening his eyes.

Sherlock furrowed his brow and didn't reply. The excited shrieks of John and Harry came to him from deeper in the woods. He wanted to join in, but he felt silly for wanting that. He wanted to be normal, but he didn't think he was capable of it.

'Got you!' Harry yelled, who from the sounds of it had pounced on John. Both of the Watsons laughed loudly.

Sherlock was about to go to them when he looked at his watch, and with a slight pang of regret realised that they needed to be heading back.

'John, Harry, it's lunchtime,' he yelled, and bit his lip as he realised how much he had wanted at that moment to ask them to play pirates with him.


	3. The 3rd Of September

_Thanks to all my followers and favouriters and reviewers so far! I hope you'll continue to enjoy this story. I'm afraid it can only get darker, and in this chapter I have borrowed parts of a certain speech by PM Neville Chamberlain, quotes from which are in bold._

* * *

The 3rd of September 1939 would be a date that nobody would ever forget. This was not immediately obvious on a day that dawned bright and clear, and began lazily; breakfast was served at nine, and just under an hour later the Holmes parents took the two pairs of siblings to church.

The Holmes brothers were stuffed unceremoniously into their Sunday best, and John and Harry into borrowed Sunday second-bests. The service was fairly dull, and uncomfortable for John and Harry, who, like all of the evacuees in the town, were a constant centre of attention. The Londoners were for the most part thinner and less healthy than their rural counterparts, for one thing; and they were all of them a bit shy still, feeling terribly out of place, and rather homesick.

After the service, which had been for the most part normal, there was a bit of an unusual rush to get home. Sherlock glanced around, and then at the church clock, and said that there must be something on the wireless. He asked his mother, who walked with similarly quick steps; she replied that there was to be an important announcement by the Prime Minister at eleven-fifteen, and that all of Britain was to tune in to find out what it was.

A shudder ran through all of the children, though they didn't know straight away quite why.

'Obviously it's going to be something to do with Chamberlain's meeting with Hitler,' Sherlock said then. 'I expect we're going to war. Hitler isn't going to back down.'

'To war!' cried John, stopping in the middle of the street.

Sherlock looked exasperated. 'Why do you think you were evacuated?'

'Sherlock,' his mother scolded him. 'John, come along. The evacuation was a precaution, not because we're definitely going to war. Hopefully Chamberlain will have resolved the matter with Hitler, and you'll be able to go home.'

'I hope so,' said Harry with a shudder.

'I hope so too,' murmured Sherlock out of earshot of the Watsons, throwing a very knowing glance in Mycroft's direction. He hadn't enjoyed having these two extra people in the house. These two extra normal people, these people who had tried to befriend, or at the least be-acquaintance the Holmes brothers; their friendly nature had won over their parents; and they knew that if they stayed they would be forced to interact with them often, and to take them places, maybe even go to school with them.

'Sherlock!' hissed Mrs Holmes, who had heard this comment. 'I wish you wouldn't be so rude.'

'I'm not rude, just honest,' shrugged Sherlock, in a short phrase summing up his very self, and said nothing more until they got home.

* * *

There were two wirelesses in the Holmes's house, but they all gathered around one of them, the big one in the living-room that was surrounded by armchairs. John and Harry were given first pick of these armchairs, and Sherlock and Mycroft left to sit on the floor.

Mrs Holmes tuned the wireless, and there was a short amount of crackling before a sound came through. The previous programme was just ending, and dissolved into silence, a silence that seemed to last a long while.

They all recognised the voice of the Prime Minister when at last he spoke. Neville Chamberlain was not a particularly remarkable man, and his voice was not particularly remarkable either, but the seriousness and authority with which he spoke immediately gave away his high position.

And he said this:

 **"This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us.**

 **I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany."**

All six of them gathered around the wireless gasped in shock at this, as, most likely, did everyone in Britain at that moment, all of them struck by the same heavy blow: at war! Sherlock had been right, he had been far too right, and even he had hoped that he wasn't. His eyes met John's very briefly. The other boy looked as if he was about to cry. None of them spoke, however, and listened more intently than ever before. The Prime Minister went on to say that he could have done nothing, that negotiations with Germany had not succeeded, and that consequently Britain, and also France, had had to stand against that country as it invaded Poland without any good reason, threatening the safety of innocent people – in short, provoking a war that he said would be utterly necessary.

The government had, he said, made plans to continue as normally as possible under the circumstances. The Prime Minister implored his people to work hard and to help how they could.

This terrible broadcast was concluded with these words, presumably an attempt at raising spirits, but perhaps utterly futile following the effects of the rest of the speech:

 **"** **Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against - brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution - and against them I am certain that the right will prevail."**

It had happened. Britain had gone to war against Germany. Mrs Holmes switched off the wireless, shot a despairing glance towards her children, her evacuees and her husband, and then left the room. Mr Holmes followed her after a moment.

'We can't,' said John at last. 'We can't be at war.'

His face had changed so dramatically in the past few minutes that he was almost a different boy. Now he looked almost as defiant as Harry, even though he felt somewhat terrified.

'The facts would state to the contrary,' murmured Mycroft, and he too got up and went from the room.

John put his arm around his sister's shoulders. Neither they nor Sherlock spoke for a long while. There was nothing much to say. The Watsons were now a rather more permanent addition to the family, their father was in what would be the most-targeted place in the country, and the entire country was almost certainly going to be subjected to unmentionable horrors that would last weeks, months, years even, if they were very unlucky. Not even the most perceptive of people could have determined that just yet.

'Damned governments,' Sherlock muttered, standing. At his voice, Redbeard came running into the room; Sherlock insisted that he sit, and ruffled the dog's fur.

'I suppose you don't understand what's going on, Redbeard,' he told the old dog. 'Lucky you.'

And he too went from the room, leaving John and Harry to remain in their tight embrace that neither wanted to escape. It was all right for the Holmeses. They were safe and all together. Mr Watson was in London. The only hope they had was that he wouldn't be drafted – he worked in the railways, and surely that job would be necessary in the war effort.

'I wish I could help,' said John at great length, letting go of his sister. 'Harry, it's weird, I thought I would panic, I thought I would be sad. But all I want to do is help. How can I help?'

Harry sighed and shook her head. 'Oh, John,' she said, 'only God can help us now.'

They could but hope that she was wrong.


	4. The Lark

_This chapter is really short, so I'll put it up along with the previous one. So you get a bonus chapter today. :) I hope you like this one._

* * *

Since the arrival of the evacuees, Sherlock had not yet demonstrated his talents upon the violin. To be perfectly honest, he had quite forgotten to practise, what with everything that had happened: his mind was turmoiled, and it was only when he reached the height of his annoyance at having to share the house with more people than usual that he decided to try to calm himself down, and so took up his violin and his bow and began to play the first thing that came into his head.

John and Harriet were perhaps surprised to hear this virtuosic playing coming from the depths of his bedroom. They had perhaps guessed that the family was musical – there was a piano in the living-room, and an entire shelf of sheet-music; and John had been in Sherlock's room, and so couldn't have failed to notice the violin-case and music-stand. But they had not known that there would be such a remarkable talent.

'Is that Sherlock playing?' asked Harry in astonishment, her eyes widening. She enjoyed live music as well as the next person, free as it was from the crackles on the wireless, but she found herself utterly captivated by this playing, drawn entirely out of her previous thoughts by the expansive piece and its brilliant rendition.

'It must be,' replied John.

They didn't know what it was he was playing, but it was an interesting piece. Soaring sections, ones that seemed to rise and rise with no end in sight, were interrupted intermittently by something akin to the twittering of a bird, or by a snatch of something like a folk-song; and there was an underlying theme to the piece that hinted at nothing less than an immense sadness or nostalgia. As they did not know the piece, they could not tell if he was playing it correctly or not, but they could very much tell that he played well, because it was beginning to tug on their heartstrings. Sherlock's strident, passionate playing hinted at an outpouring of pure emotion from the player. It was quite unlike anything they had heard before.

It was evidently a long piece, because he did not stop for a good twenty minutes; but at last the house fell silent, and yet still seemed to ring with the heart-wrenching notes that he had flung into every corner. John and Harry could not move or speak for more than a second.

'We should go and congratulate him,' he said at length.

Harry nodded and stood, and they went together to Sherlock's room and knocked on the door. After a few moments a voice from within invited them in.

Sherlock was running a cloth down the strings of a beautiful violin, and did not look up at their entrance, merely saying: 'Ah, it's you.'

'Sherlock, what were you playing?' John asked.

' _The Lark Ascending_.' Sherlock indicated the music with the end of his bow. It looked very complicated. 'By Ralph Vaughan Williams.' Seeing that the Watsons did not recognise the piece or the name of the composer, he added: 'It's supposed to have an orchestra backing the violin, but I don't have an orchestra. It describes the flight of a skylark.'

'Skylark?' asked Harry.

Sherlock furrowed his brow, and them remembered that the pair had not until now left London, and were finding a good deal of things about the countryside bewildering. Still, he was surprised they had never heard of skylarks. Sherlock saw them all the time round here. 'They're birds. They nest in fields, and sometimes fly up really high into the sky, singing all the while. They're quite common. Get Mummy to show you one next time you go for a walk.'

'You played really well,' John said then.

Sherlock smiled very slightly. 'Not really.'

'Yes, really,' John persisted. 'I thought you were brilliant.'

The slightest hint of a blush came into Sherlock's impossibly pale cheeks, and he brushed off this compliment. 'It's a good piece. It's hard to make it sound bad.'

'It _was_ a nice piece,' agreed Harry. 'But it was quite sad.'

'It was written during the Great War,' Sherlock replied, shrugging. 'I thought it would be fitting...'

'It was,' said John. 'Sherlock, you should play more often. You're really good.'

Sherlock did not, could not reply. It was very rare that people paid him genuine compliments, and it was obvious from the expressions on the Watsons' faces that these were very genuine. He merely tried to smile, not knowing quite how one was supposed to take a compliment, and went back to tending to his instrument.


	5. On Patriotism

It was a few days before school started that Mycroft made his announcement at dinner. The Holmes parents already knew, of course, but he hadn't yet told the children. Not even his brother – who was, as it happened, was the closest to him, despite the distance that there seemed to be between them.

He waited until dessert had finished, and the plates had been cleared up, and then stood up and cleared his throat. 'Mother – Father – you know what I am going to say, but I shall say it, because Sherlock and the others ought to know as well. I – well, I have signed up to join the army.'

Though Mrs Holmes had already known this, she then sniffed and clutched at the handkerchief in her pocket. Mr Holmes looked very serious, but a little proud. The children meanwhile stared at Mycroft in shock.

'You're going to war?' asked John at last, in a very small voice.

Mycroft nodded, and could not meet his eyes.

Just then there was a crash. Sherlock had stood, and, with fury blazing in his eyes, he had pushed his chair roughly towards the table. He glared at Mycroft for just a moment before storming from the room.

There was, perhaps, a greater silence following this than following Mycroft's announcement. They all stared after Sherlock, astonished by this unusual display of some great emotion, some emotion he usually kept entirely bottled up.

Mycroft cleared his throat again, rather less confidently than last time, and asked if he might leave the table, to go to Sherlock's room and see if he was all right. He was granted permission, and Mycroft left the room.

'Why must he join the army?' asked John, who looked close to crying. He did not much like Mycroft – he and Harry found him dull, sarcastic, almost misanthropic – but he couldn't bear to think that he would go to war, to fight, to kill, perhaps to be –

A soldier, for God's sake! Joining the army was like attempting suicide, or at the least dicing with death. It was a horrible thought. Why did Britain have to be at war? Why did Mycroft have to join it?

Mrs Holmes, though visibly upset, smiled bravely, and with more than a hint of irony. 'He would have been conscripted anyway, eventually,' she said, as if that was in any way reassuring. 'He discussed it with us, though: he said that it was what he wanted to do, that he wanted to defend Britain and help in the fight. He's always been a patriot, our Mycroft.'

And she didn't say anything else for the rest of the evening.

* * *

Sherlock Holmes did not invite his brother in when he knocked on the door, but Mycroft came in anyway, silently, pensively. He found Sherlock on the hearth-rug by his unlit fire, his face buried in Redbeard's fur. He wasn't crying, but he was still trembling with whatever emotion it was that had struck a dagger through his heart.

'Brother mine,' said Mycroft at last, and his voice faltered.

'Mycroft,' said Sherlock in a muffled voice.

'I leave in three days,' Mycroft said. 'The day before you return to school.'

'I know.'

Mycroft did not ask how Sherlock knew. He supposed he must have deduced it. Sherlock still hadn't looked up; Mycroft was just a little disconcerted, because it was one of the only times in his life that he hadn't the slightest idea exactly what his brother might be thinking.

'Will you have to fight?' asked Sherlock at length.

Mycroft shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 'Perhaps. It depends on what is required of the forces. How the war pans out.'

'Could you do it, Mycroft?'

Now Sherlock looked up, and his face showed that he was more perplexed than anything else. Mycroft stared at him; he knew what Sherlock was asking him, but still said evasively: 'Do what?'

'Kill someone. Could you do it?'

There was no response. The silence that descended upon the room then was stifling. The two brothers hardly dared meet each other's eyes.

'If he was an enemy of Britain,' Mycroft said at length, 'yes.'

'I don't think I could,' Sherlock mused, and looked down at his dog, taking his face and furry ears in his hands. 'I have enemies, but I couldn't kill them.'

'Childhood squabbles are different to international conflict,' Mycroft said with a somewhat forced chuckle.

'They're not when it comes down to one man against another.'

It was evident from Sherlock's tone of voice that he did not know whether to believe what he was saying or not. For the moment, he was presenting a devil's advocate, so that he could study every side of a matter that entirely confused him.

'And if your refusal to kill a sworn enemy was seen as cowardice, indeed treason?' Mycroft asked him then.

Sherlock did not reply.

'But this is not what I meant to talk about when I came in here. God, Sherlock,' he sighed, 'you think too much. What I meant to say is –'

He swallowed. He had planned these words for ages, and now, when it came to it, he couldn't force them out. What was stopping him? his own self-esteem. He couldn't reveal any weaknesses, not ever: it made him look bad, it made him stoop from the confident, aloof self he was so proud of.

At this long hesitation, Sherlock turned back to Mycroft, and his mouth twitched a little. 'If it makes you feel any better,' he said, 'I'll miss you too, dear brother.'

He could scarcely believe he'd said it, he could believe it even less when Mycroft scooped him up in his arms and hugged him tightly and genuinely for possibly the first time in his life.


	6. Leaving

**To the guest reviewers, whom I have not had chance to thank "in person" - thanks so much for reviewing! Thanks, indeed, to everyone following this story. I hope you'll continue to enjoy it.**

* * *

Mycroft always dressed himself smartly. Suits were what he wore well – he didn't look quite _right_ in more scruffy trousers, nor did he look good in anything except the most immaculate jacket. It cost him a fortune in clothes, but he had something of a fortune, and so it didn't really matter.

It was strange, then, that he didn't look right in army uniform.

The jacket, the shirt, the trousers: if they had been any other colour, they would have looked like what he usually wore. But he didn't really suit khaki. The brownish-green sort of colour was horrible anyway, but on Mycroft it seemed to clash terribly.

Not to mention it was a bit surreal seeing Mycroft standing there in _army uniform_ , about to go off to war.

He was actually quite proud of this uniform and of its connotations. He would be immensely glad to serve England, to help to win this war. Mycroft Holmes was like that: quietly, but fiercely, patriotic, and something of a fighter though he didn't really look it. He got used to his uniform, wore it several times in the days before he was to leave; he perhaps didn't quite realise the effect it had on the rest of his family.

On the morning of the day of departure – Mycroft would leave after lunch – John was surprised when he heard a knock on his door, and opened it to find himself face-to-face with the elder Holmes brother, who had scarcely interacted with him the entire time he had been here, and who hadn't at all been in his room. The young man was still in that damned army uniform, and had a very serious expression on his face, as if he was only just realising now what he was getting himself into. John invited him in, very politely drawing up a chair for him, onto which Mycroft more collapsed than sat.

'John,' he said, and then, after a pause: 'John, close the door for a moment, wouldn't you?'

John did so.

'I believe you're going to school with Sherlock this term.'

John nodded, not especially eagerly.

'And you're going into the same year as him?'

John nodded again.

'How do you find my brother? – almost as bad as me, I expect?'

'You're not bad,' said John at once. 'You're just, well, unusual.'

Mycroft smiled slightly. 'Look after him, won't you?'

John blinked in confusion.

'My brother. Sherlock. He finds school difficult, and though he would never admit it he needs someone there with him. Not a friend. He's like me. He doesn't really do friends. But he needs an... acquaintance. Just someone who's there for him in case it all goes wrong, or something. To look out for him.' He waved his hand in an apology for his somewhat garbled speech. 'Look after him for me, won't you?'

John paused, as if considering this request; then he said: 'Of course I will, Mycroft Holmes.'

And he thrust out a hand and shook, and Mycroft left the room feeling as if a great weight had been taken off his shoulders.

* * *

The day came round too quickly. It was still bizarre to see him wandering around in that uniform, if only because, though they were a week into this war, nothing seemed to have happened just yet. It was quiet. Too quiet. Yet the first blow was about to be struck, and none of the Holmeses or the Watsons liked to look at the uniformed Mycroft as he gathered up his things, and made last-minute checks, or perhaps reminisced as he stepped into each room of the house.

The dinner-spread that day was magnificent. Mrs Holmes usually put out a remarkable array of food the day before school started, because she knew how little regard most of the boys had for school food, but this time she had outdone herself. Mycroft was put at the head of the table, a position he didn't much like except for the authority that he felt it gave him, and looked out over his family without them daring to return his gaze.

At the end of the meal there was still quite a bit left, because nobody had been able to do more than pick at the food. But seeing that everyone was finished, Mr Holmes poured out glasses of wine for the adults, and fruit juice in wine glasses for the children, and raised his glass.

'To Mycroft!' he said in a low and somewhat reverent voice.

And all of them echoed this toast and raised their own glasses, then drank. The slightest hint of a blush crept into Mycroft's cheeks, and he eventually managed to swallow his wine.

After dinner was finished they were all shepherded out onto the drive, where Mr Holmes's car was waiting. He got in; Mycroft hesitated a moment, as if he had been about to clamber into the passenger side without saying his goodbyes, before turning back to the others. He regarded his family as if he couldn't quite believe what he was doing. It was perfectly unlike Mycroft to show any emotion, but there was certainly something sparking in his eyes.

'John – Harry –' he said, and then stopped, reluctant to give any form of speech. Then, in a bit of a blank voice, he said, rather conventionally: 'Keep safe. Enjoy school. I hope you see your father soon.'

He shook their hands, and they said their goodbyes to him.

'Mummy –'

Mrs Holmes kissed her elder son on the cheek, knowing how little he liked hugs, and said goodbye rather tearfully.

'Sherlock –'

Sherlock refused to meet his gaze.

'Sherlock, please.'

At last he looked up, blinking frantically. When Mycroft next spoke, it was in a very quiet voice, one that the others wouldn't hear.

'Sherlock, I... I want you to know that I regret all the times we've fought. I think we get on really. It's upset our mother –'

'Shut up,' said Sherlock.

'I just want us to part as friends,' said Mycroft, and his voice was so incredibly sincere and pleading that he very nearly tipped Sherlock over the edge. His little brother said nothing.

'Goodbye, dear brother.'

They shook hands firmly. They may have embraced the other day, but they didn't dare to repeat the act, not in front of the others. Then Mycroft turned away, and got in the car, and went away towards an uncertain future.


	7. The First Day

**My intention was for this story not to carry on much after this chapter. But it seems to be turning into an Enid Blyton-style boarding-school epic. I hope you don't mind. There will be some familiar faces too. ;)**

* * *

'Are you sure you've got everything, boys?' Mrs Holmes asked for about the hundredth time since setting off from home.

John and Sherlock both nodded very definitely, and grasped the handles of their suitcases, ready to set off up the drive towards school. It was a tall red brick building that loomed above them, built specifically to be a school, and so made to look just a little imposing. Boys of various ages flooded the drive, calling out to each other, saying their goodbyes, locating teachers and friends among the mass.

Sherlock was by now used to this, but John felt a little bewildered. Furthermore, he hadn't ever been to school without Harry, whom the Holmeses had sent to a girls' school quite a distance away. He had been given Sherlock as a sort of mentor and "looker-after", but he wasn't sure that the boy would be all that good at this job. If Mycroft's words were anything to go by, it would probably end up being the other way round.

'Don't forget to find the Mrs Hudson, introduce her to John,' Mrs Holmes told Sherlock, looking out over the crowd to see if she could spot the housemistress. It was perhaps unusual for a boys' school to have a woman in charge of boarding, but the boys were very fond of Martha Hudson, and furthermore she was really rather fond of them. Even Sherlock had a soft spot for her.

Sherlock nodded semi-reluctantly. He disliked being in charge of John far more than John disliked having Sherlock in charge of him. 'Very well. Goodbye, Mummy.'

Mrs Holmes bent down and kissed Sherlock on the cheek.

'Goodbye, Mrs Holmes,' said John. 'And thank you so much. For everything.'

'You're very welcome, my dear boy,' said Mrs Holmes, smiling affectionately, and briefly clasping the boy to her. It would be wrong to say that she preferred him to Sherlock as a son, but she rather wished Sherlock was more like this polite friendly child.

Then Mrs Holmes got back in the car and headed back home. John waved until she was out of sight, and then turned to Sherlock.

'Where's the housemistress?' he asked. 'Is she nice?'

'Objectively,' Sherlock replied vaguely. 'You would probably like her... Ah, there she is. Mrs Hudson!' Martha Hudson was not married, and the boys didn't know if she ever had been (Sherlock suspected she had, and that her husband had been a less than honest man), but for some reason she suited Mrs Hudson far more than Miss.

She was a motherly sort of woman, or perhaps an auntie, with her flyaway hair, beaming smile and warm, cheerful nature. Her eyes lit up on seeing Sherlock, and fell curiously on John; she quickly finished her conversation with one of the other boys, and then came over.

'Ah, Sherlock,' she said. 'Nice to see you back. And is this... Oh, look at me, I've forgotten his name.'

'John Watson,' Sherlock supplied.

'John Watson. That's it. It's very nice to meet you, John.' She grinned a little mischievously. 'Be careful with Sherlock, won't you? And Sherlock – your mother wanted you to be in the same dormitory, so you can keep a look out for him. So I've moved Henry into the next room, if that's all right.'

Sherlock shrugged. He didn't much care who he was forced to live with any more. He just tended to ignore his roommates.

'Do you want to show John up?' Mrs Hudson suggested.

Sherlock nodded and led the way without a word. He was already lost in thought, and probably would be for most of the term.

The dormitory was a small, uncomfortable sort of room painted in a demoralising off-white colour. There were three beds in it, and between them were cupboards, so that almost the entire room was composed of furniture. There was already a boy on one of the beds, sifting through a stack of books in his suitcase; he looked up at Sherlock and John's entrance.

'Hullo, Sherlock,' he said. 'And you must be John.'

John nodded.

'William Farrell.' He shook hands with this newcomer, while Sherlock as good as ignored him. William was a perfectly normal student who had at first tried to befriend Sherlock, but had quickly given up on finding that Sherlock didn't want friends, and wasn't especially likeable anyway.

John, though a bit shy at first, fell into a conventional conversation with the other boy as they each unpacked their suitcases. It did not escape John's attention that all of the other boys had much larger suitcases than his: his contained just a spare set of clothes, a notebook (which from the looks of it had been used often, possibly as a diary, or some sort of journal), and a little box of biscuits that Mrs Holmes had given him. Sherlock meanwhile, though he didn't seem terribly materialistic, had brought a huge stack of books and a chemistry-set, which he set very carefully on the shelf in his wardrobe and on the window-ledge, which he had claimed.

'Have you seen Mrs H?' William said then, jumping up.

'She was outside a minute ago,' John supplied.

'But is now in the sick-bay,' added Sherlock, without looking up.

William grinned lopsidedly and went towards the door, but before he left, he said to John: 'I suppose Sherlock's being trying out his deductions on you.'

John looked confused.

'Has he not? – oh, he will do before long. Won't you, Sherlock? You'll get used to it. You do when you have to live with him.'

And on that note, William left the room.

'Deductions?' asked John, abandoning his unpacking in favour of a pursuit of his curiosity.

'I deduce things,' Sherlock said shortly, as if that was supposed to explain everything.

'What do you mean?'

'I look carefully at things and guess things,' Sherlock shrugged. He wasn't much in the mood for explanations.

'Like... like the fact that William really likes classic literature?' John suggested.

'That's simple observation,' Sherlock said, rolling his eyes: John had been looking towards the stack of books in William's suitcase. 'Observation tells me that he reads classic literature, since that he has brought ten books and none of them were written later than 1890. The fact that some of these books are well-thumbed tells me that he reads them often – hence enjoyment. Deduction would tell me that he has had a birthday recently, since some of the books are new. As is his coat, incidentally. There are many other things that can be deduced from the content of this suitcase, but I shan't bore you with them.'

And with that he leaned backwards and made to disappear into the bewildering world of his own thoughts, but John stopped him.

'Are you famous for deductions, then, or something?'

'I make a few, from time to time,' said Sherlock. 'When I feel like it. I feel as if there ought to be a use for such a skill, but Mycroft has never found one, and I'm not sure I ever will, either. It's a simple party-trick.'

John furrowed his brow and shrugged, but vowed to himself that he would find some way of diverting Sherlock's energies into something useful. He had seen several other examples of the boy's great intelligence, but Sherlock's apathy meant that he rarely used it for anything.

Just then William returned, and struck up another conversation with John, or rather continued their previous conversation; Sherlock, somewhat relieved, separated himself from this idle chatter and sank into what looked like nothing short of a trance that seemed to absorb him completely.

William Farrell knew that Sherlock Holmes was an enigma, and he had accepted that fairly quickly. John was also conscious of this puzzle, but, unlike William, he found himself determined to solve it.


	8. The First Week

_Dear Mycroft,_

 _I don't know where to send this to so I've sent it via Mummy. I hope you get it. I know I don't usually send letters to you in term time, or indeed any time; perhaps I regret this, but – anyway, I thought I had better see how you were doing. Where are you stationed? How is the war panning out? Are you allowed to tell me any of this?_

 _John and I arrived safely at school. So did Harry, probably. Mummy and Daddy were sad to see them go. I think they preferred them to us. Unsurprising, really. John is turning out to be good at biology. He doesn't know what he wants to do when he's older. I do. I think he'll be a doctor._

 _There was an air raid drill this week – the first. The sirens sound weird. And it was annoying because I was in the library in my mind palace and we hadn't been told when the drill would be. The shelter at school is quite big, but not quite big enough. I ended up squashed between John and the rugby captain. I don't imagine the shelter is much use. We're far enough out of London for us not to be a viable target. And anyway, the air raids probably won't start for a while yet._

 _I'm sorry. I don't know what to put. I'm not good at letters. And to be perfectly fair, I'm about as bothered about what you're doing as you are about what I'm doing. I just want to be sure you're alive. Please write as often as you can._

 _Your brother,_

 _Sherlock Holmes_

* * *

 _Dear Sherlock,_

 _Thank you for your letter. I haven't much time to write so I shall just say that I can't say much. You'll notice, no doubt, that this letter is postmarked Oxford. That's not where I posted it, but if you send letters to the address with which I've headed this letter, they'll find their way to me._

 _I hereby assure you that I am alive._

 _Your brother,_

 _Mycroft Holmes_

* * *

School was going much as can be expected. The days were composed of a meeting in the mornings, lessons, meals and prep. Sherlock found the routine tedious. John found it comforting. The former was apathetic about most things, including chemistry, his favourite subject (supposedly): indeed, he didn't put much energy into anything except playing in the orchestra, which, though he would never admit it, was probably his one true passion. The latter dived headfirst into all of the subjects, trying his absolute hardest; he was best at biology, as Sherlock had noticed, but he enjoyed most things. The teachers warmed very quickly to young John Watson because of this, and because he was polite and amiable. Perhaps they harboured a secret wish that some of this would rub off on Sherlock, who, though he kept an eye on John, scarcely interacted with the boy, and was always at least half in his own world.

John furthermore tried to get involved in as much as possible: it had not escaped the teachers' notice that he was much stronger and bolder than he looked, and so was an unlikely, but splendid, choice for the sports teams. Therefore John was proud to return to his dormitory one day bearing the news that he had been chosen for the junior rugby team.

'Oh,' said Sherlock, who wasn't really listening.

'Sherlock, be nice to John,' murmured William Farrell from his own bed, looking up from his book.

Sherlock sighed, looked up, and said in a bland voice: 'That's very nice, John. I hope you don't get too many black eyes.' He paused. 'Well, I suppose you can only get two at once.'

'Sherlock!' said William Farrell, doing a remarkable impression of Mrs Holmes, who had been hounding at Sherlock for his profound disinterest in his charge. Then, turning to the other boy: 'John, that's great! Who's the captain? – oh, it's that Lestrade boy, isn't it?'

'Greg Lestrade, yes,' John nodded.

'Lestrade's all right,' said Sherlock unexpectedly.

'He's the one who wants to be a policeman, isn't he?' William Farrell commented. 'And Sherlock – didn't he lend you a book about forensics? Did you ever give it back to him?'

'Stop micromanaging my life, Farrell,' Sherlock snapped. When William, smiling a little, had returned to his book, Sherlock immediately dived into his suitcase and drew out a book, blushing a little as he put it to one side and made a mental note to return it later.

'And you want to be a detective,' said John. 'You could be in the police force together.'

'God forbid,' muttered Sherlock. 'I would be a private detective. No – a, a consulting detective. Do consulting detectives exist? I would invent them. And then I would be the only one in the world.' He smiled at this fantasy, and leaned back, preparing to enter his mind palace once again.

'Is Mycroft all right?' asked John suddenly.

'What? – oh, yes, he is,' said Sherlock. 'Why?'

'I just noticed you writing to him. I was curious. I hope he doesn't have to do much – that this war ends soon.'

The topic of the war had not, except during the air raid drill, been brought up much at all. Britain had been at war for a couple of weeks now, and yet nothing seemed to have happened. It was too quiet. Even in the dormitory, where an uneasy silence suddenly fell. John blushed and tried to diffuse the situation.

'Well, if Hitler comes over here, he won't know what's hit him if he has to confront Mycroft,' he laughed. 'And when Mycroft's finished with him, our rugby team will be on to him. If that's not enough, maybe he should meet my sister.'

Both Sherlock and William chuckled. William had never met Harry Watson, but he already knew her to be a true wild card. Her first letter to John, which had arrived earlier this week, had mostly detailed the times she had been told off by her teachers.

The conversation, however, fell flat then, charged as it was with issues that nobody really wanted to discuss. The air raid drill had been enough of a warning of their surreal situation. They could but hope that the whole affair would die down. After all, going to school with Sherlock Holmes was enough of a hurdle without the country being at war.


	9. Friendships

**I do apologise. I seem to have hit a bit of a rut. So I'll just leave this (very short) chapter here whilst I sort out the following chapters. I hope you like this little interlude, anyway. :)**

* * *

 _Dear John,_

 _How are you? I am fine, and school is just wizard! There are three of us in my dormitory, me, Molly Hooper – she's really nice, and we have made friends already – and Sally Donovan, who is horrible, but we don't see her much. Clara and Georgina are my other friends so far in my year._

 _The grounds here are SO NICE! There is a tree in the middle and I got told off for climbing it, but I didn't regret it. I could see right out over the fields from the top. There's also a big field and in games we get to play cricket! I ADORE cricket – do you remember when I asked Mr Harris at our old school if we could play cricket, and he said it wasn't very ladylike? – well, they don't care about being ladylike here. It's such good fun! But I wish you were here._

 _I wrote to Dad the other day. I imagine you did too. I'm still waiting for his reply but I presume he is safe because we haven't been attacked yet. Molly doesn't think we ever will be. Did you have to do air raid drill? And how horrible are the shelters?! They're all stuffy and dark. I hope we don't have to do too many drills._

 _How's Sherlock? I told the other girls about him, and Sally thinks he sounds like a freak, and Molly thinks he sounds interesting. I don't imagine you and him talk much. He's not much of a chatterbox, is he? And he seems a bit boring. Have you made any other friends?_

 _I'm going to have to stop now. I am supposed to be doing prep. I hope you're fine. Write back soon!_

 _Harry_

* * *

 _Dear Harry,_

 _School is good. Some of the masters are a bit strict but most of them are good sports. I like biology best of all but the chemistry master is the nicest. Even Sherlock likes Mr Cartwright. But then, Mr Cartwright_ does _let Sherlock play around in the lab outside of lessons. He managed to get half his blazer eaten away by acid the other day, and nearly dissolved half the table as well. But he said that the experiment was a success regardless._

 _You get to play cricket? That's not fair! We have to do winter sports this term. I'm on the rugby team though! And I've made friends with the captain Greg. Well, sort of. He's in the top year so it's only a sort-of friendship. William Farrell, who is in my dormitory, is nice enough but we're not proper friends either. People keep expecting me to be friends with Sherlock but I'm really not sure Sherlock wants friends. Perhaps we should introduce him to your Molly Hooper. There aren't many people who think he's interesting._

 _Air raid drills – ugh! You're right – the shelters are awful. So's the war. I hope it all blows over. Sherlock says that he doubts it will, but though Sherlock is right about almost everything, I hope he isn't right about this. He got a letter from Mycroft and Mycroft is fine. Dad hasn't written back to me yet either but he will, I'm sure._

 _It's so weird, going to boarding-school, sharing a dormy with Sherlock, and you going to a different school! I miss you. Write soon!_

 _John_


	10. Sibling Rivalry

**Thanks once again to all my lovely followers on this (now _very_ Blyton-esque) adventure!**

 **The only thing I must add to this chapter is that the last section must be considered with regards to the time period.**

* * *

John's year may not have been playing cricket in lessons, but a team was set up rather quickly when it was mentioned that there ought to be a tournament between some of the schools in the area. It was less of a competitive match, more in the spirit of friendship that seemed to have sprung up since the start of the war, and John was surprised but rather pleased to see Harry's school on the list of those taking part. He immediately went to write to Harry, and a few days later received the enthusiastic response that Harry would be playing for her school, as John would be playing for his, and both of them found this notion somewhat amusing.

Therefore, on a bright day at the start of October, a deluge of students from various schools descended onto the lawn, and John raced down from the gym, where he had changed into his kit, to see if he could find Harry. He eventually spotted her, dressed as she was in a kit that bore the bright colours of her school, and shouted and waved; Harry came running over, grinning.

'Your kit is better than ours,' she said a little ruefully, indicating the rather smart cricket gear that John now wore. 'But you won't beat us at the actual sport. We need to prove girls are better than boys once and for all, even at cricket.'

'Hey!' said John good-naturedly.

Harry grinned. 'Don't worry,' she said, 'I'll support both teams. I hope you do us Watsons proud.'

'And I hope you do,' replied John.

And they embraced each other, still in a state of friendly rivalry but immensely happy to see each other again after what felt like an age.

'Is that Sherlock over there?' Harry asked then. 'Yes, it is – hullo, Sherlock!' she called out.

Sherlock, who had followed the crowd down to the lawn but looked as if he didn't quite know how he had got there, came distractedly over to John and Harry, and greeted the latter one in a vague sort of voice.

'I thought you would be on the cricket team,' Harry observed. 'You run fast, and you have a good aim.'

'I don't much care for team sports,' Sherlock shrugged.

'You do fencing, though,' John reminded him. Then, turning to Harry: 'Sherlock doesn't boast about it, but he won the county fencing tournament. I wish he'd be a bit more proud about it. He was against a boy twice his size.'

'Oh, well done, Sherlock!' cried Harry.

Sherlock blushed a little. He was in fact more than a little proud of his medal, which he kept in a box with several of his other most treasured belongings, but he wasn't one to brag, or indeed make the slightest mention of it. It came under the heading _small talk_ , and he didn't care for small talk in the slightest.

'Anyway,' said Harry, 'I need to introduce Sherlock to Molly – and John, you should meet Clara, she's great – where have they got to? – ah, there's Molly –'

She indicated a girl with a ponytail who, though she looked rather more "girly" than Harry, had the same sort of defiant expression on her face. She wasn't dressed in cricket kit – she had just come along to support the players – and smiled when she caught sight of Harry and the others.

'Molly, this is John, my brother, of course – and I've mentioned Sherlock Holmes,' Harry said, when they had gone over to the other girl. 'Everyone, this is Molly Hooper. She's in my dormitory.'

Molly shook hands with everyone, a little shyly, especially when she came to Sherlock.

They would perhaps have struck up conversation, but that the voice of the games master suddenly cut across the lawn, saying that all of the teams needed to gather ready to begin play, and everyone else needed to head to the field.

Therefore John and Harry apologised to the others, and went away with the rest of their teams; Sherlock and Molly were left feeling a little awkward, and, though in the crowd they were forced to walk side by side, didn't say a word to each other as they went to the field.

It took merely a glance for Sherlock to work out that Molly didn't have any friends who weren't playing in the tournament, and so didn't really know who to attach herself to. Furthermore, she seemed to have deemed him, as a mutual acquaintance of John and Harry Watson, a suitable target, for this afternoon anyway. Therefore he found himself with something of a tail in the form of a girl who most definitely wasn't this shy the majority of the time, but seemed tongue-tied at present. Though to be honest, those who found themselves in the presence of Sherlock Holmes never did find much to say to him.

John and Harry's teams were against each other in the first match, and as a good deal of people now knew that the two were siblings, there was much grinning when they saw the pair pitted against each other and exchanging smiles of their own. Harry was taller and perhaps even a little broader than John, and was certainly the favourite to win in this battle of siblings.

As John, whose team was batting first, looked out over the crowd of spectators, he spotted Sherlock sitting with Molly; the former was lost in some sort of daydream, as usual, and the latter was blushing scarlet. John gave them a wave but neither noticed.

There was a shout then, and the whistle was blown, and play commenced. John was the second to bat, and went forwards a little nervously, because there was a fielder just exactly where he usually ended up pitching the ball, and this fielder just so happened to be Harry.

But he didn't have time to think, only to keep an eye on the ball, and hit it with a _thunk_. It span towards Harry; she stretched her arms upwards – and it sailed over her, and rolled towards the copse at the side of the field.

And she sped after it, whilst John and the first batsman tried to get in as many runs as possible. At last the ball was hurled towards the wickets by a particularly fierce-looking girl; but John and the other batsman managed to reach their wickets in time, and so were not struck out, after three runs. John winked at Harry, who grimaced good-naturedly.

Play continued in much the same manner all afternoon, with the sun beating down on the players, and with John's team gaining a considerable winning streak against all of the teams they played. During half-time, John and Harry went for drinks, and met Molly there, but not Sherlock: the strange child had been as good as abandoned in his mind-palace, and still sat near the spectators' chairs as if the game was still going on. Molly had attempted to make conversation with him. He had just demanded that she get him a glass of orange juice, and otherwise ignored her.

By the end of the afternoon John's team had overwhelmingly won the tournament, and great cheers went up from their supporters. Harry encouraged her own team to cheer them, too, and sent up a loud _hip, hip, hurrah!_ that was closely followed by John's own three cheers for all of the losing teams.

Some of the other schools stayed for a late afternoon tea, and so John, Harry, Molly and Sherlock reunited in the dining-hall over tea and scones, most of them chatting merrily about the afternoon's events: except for Sherlock, of course, who now more tagged along out of necessity more than anything else. He rather wanted to go up to the dormitory, but they weren't for the moment allowed.

'It was a great game,' Harry said, a little breathlessly.

'You played brilliantly,' John complimented her.

'So did you,' Harry returned, smiling.

'Shame we didn't win,' Molly laughed. 'Seems boys _are_ better than girls, at cricket at least.'

'Subjectively,' Sherlock observed, without looking up. 'You would conduct a better experiment by repeated testing and analysis, and then when you had eliminated such factors as –'

'Sherlock,' John scolded him, but good-naturedly.

'He's a proper scientist, isn't he?' Harry grinned, glancing towards Molly, who no doubt knew about all of Sherlock's antics by now.

John sighed. 'Unfortunately... Hey, Harry! You haven't introduced me to your other friend... what's she called, Clara?'

'Clara! Oh, yes!' Harry looked around the hall before calling out this name. A pretty girl from another table beamed over at her, and came to the table to say hello. Introductions were thus made, and soon Clara, still standing, was caught up in conversation with the others.

The girls had to go at length; they said their goodbyes, and Harry embraced John tightly and looked a bit teary at this parting, but promised, in a low voice, that if she wasn't allowed to see him again before too long she would escape from school and come and find him. John grinned, but secretly hoped she wouldn't. Sometimes Harry was just a bit too much trouble.

As it was just Sherlock and John left then, the conversation entirely died, and both boys decided to go back up to their dormitory. Sherlock was deep in thought, and it was only once they had entered the bedroom that he next spoke.

'Harry's friend Clara –' he began.

'Pretty, isn't she?' said John with a laugh.

Sherlock looked annoyed. 'No, I wasn't thinking about that – and prettiness is entirely subjective anyway – I would say she was about middlingly pretty, and to me not in the least attractive, if you must know – but no: what I was going to say was – is she just Harry's friend, or –'

And he stopped, and though John was left entirely confused, Sherlock knew exactly where he had been heading, and despite himself began to worry a little about the way Harry and Clara had looked at each other.


	11. Mycroft

**I hope you don't mind a bit of a switch in focus for this chapter. We turn now to Mycroft: and anyone who can guess what he's up to might receive a virtual pat on the back. ;)**

* * *

 _Dear Sherlock,_

 _No need to tell me about the result of the cricket. Tell John well done from me. And congratulations on your fencing medal. I believe Mummy has cut your picture out of the newspaper and stuck it on the wall, so you might want to get her to take it down if you go home at half-term._

 _Haven't a good deal of time to write. Cannot tell you anything about my occupations at present, only that I am for the moment, like the rest of the country, somewhat idle._

 _Your brother,_

 _Mycroft Holmes_

'Are you writing to your brother?'

Mycroft started. He hadn't realised that anyone had entered the room just then; nor had he ever before been addressed by the young woman who now crossed to his desk and deposited a stack of paper beside him.

'Yes,' he said at length.

'Terribly sweet of you.'

'I only write so he knows I'm alive.'

'Mr Holmes, you care for your brother, there is no shame in admitting that.'

Mycroft coughed falsely and turned back to the letter, which he slid in an envelope and postmarked Oxford. Then, changing the subject: 'Take this to Alan.' He handed her a slip of paper, and she left the room at a brisk pace with a slight smile coming to her lips. It occurred to him, bizarrely, that he didn't know her name. He didn't even know if she was actually a secretary, though as far as he was concerned she performed that function.

Within a few minutes, however, he had all but forgotten her, and, after putting the letter with a stack of other missives, turned to his paperwork and in this way separated himself entirely from the outside world.

* * *

It was only the second letter that had arrived from Mycroft in as many months. Sherlock had asked him to write often; evidently that was his brother's idea of often. And he was increasingly suspecting that Mycroft seemed to have been employed not by the standard army, but by the secret service or special forces or something like that. Mycroft had intended for him to work that out. That much was evident. But it meant that he would be able to get little, if any, information out of his brother about anything.

He looked over the letter again, memorised its contents, and was about to toss the missive into the fire when he heard a voice behind him.

'Isn't that your brother's letter?' said John.

Sherlock started. He hadn't realised that John had been watching him.

'Yes,' he said shortly.

'Why are you burning it?'

'I... don't need it anymore.'

'I keep all of Harry's letters. I couldn't get rid of them like that.' John studied Sherlock in something akin to aghast for a moment, before saying with a slight smile: 'I suppose I'm sentimental. I'm sorry; it's terribly impolite of me to interrupt you like this.'

He turned round then, and went to talk to someone else in the common-room; Sherlock hesitated for a long moment. Then he tore off the section that read _Your brother, Mycroft Holmes_ , slipped it into his blazer pocket, and cast the rest of the letter into the fire.

* * *

 _Dear Mycroft,_

 _I don't really know what to write but I shall write anyway. John had chastised me for not writing so often, and for burning all of your letters. I guessed however that their contents were sensitive enough material to merit destruction before any other eyes but mine saw them. I am, I have to admit, honoured that you should trust me with as much as you do. I have of course guessed roughly what it is you are doing, and I am, I can tell you, damned glad that you are not in the "Army Proper". Please don't fight, Mycroft. Not unless it becomes ABSOLUTELY necessary._

 _I told John that I thought he would be a doctor. He laughed in such a way that I knew I was right. He's rather good at biology. I am still better at him at chemistry though._

 _We are going home for half-term, I think. Do you ever get holidays? Will you be home for Christmas?_

 _Sherlock_

Mycroft chuckled a little before putting the letter aside. His brother really was too damned clever for his own good sometimes. Perhaps he was a little proud of him. But he couldn't deny that there was a particular sentence in the letter that bothered him – that about him burning all of his correspondence. He couldn't place quite why it twinged a little at his heart. He wasn't good at matters of the heart. But it most definitely bothered him, and he had to make himself a cup of tea to reduce the feeling.

The secretary was in the kitchen when he got there. She was just about to put the kettle on the stove, but Mycroft stopped her and asked if he might add some water. Therefore two cups of water were brought to the boil, with Mycroft standing awkwardly beside this mysterious woman.

'Was that letter from your brother?' she asked.

Mycroft recalled, vaguely, that it had been her who had brought him the envelope. 'Yes.'

'He's got interesting handwriting,' the woman commented. 'Neat enough for him to be a perfectionist. Irregular enough for him not to be a very good one. Patient enough to use a dip pen. Impatient enough not to care about the amount of ink he's loading it with. He seems a bit like you.'

Mycroft could not say that he wasn't surprised by her deductions. They were simple, it must be said, and lacked precision and flair, but he hadn't perhaps imagined a secretary to be so observant. He was starting to think that she might not be a secretary. He was about to address her with something to that effect when the water started to bubble, and so was interrupted as he poured it out and made two cups of tea: both of them black, one with sugar and one without.

The woman took her cup and made to leave the kitchen. Mycroft stopped her with a glance.

'I'm sorry, madam, but I don't believe I know your name.' He paused. 'I don't know if I'm allowed to know your name.'

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. 'You may call me Anthea.' And with that she left.

Mycroft was left sipping his tea, thoroughly confused by her response. It wasn't often he couldn't guess if someone was lying or not. She knew his name. That suggested that he ought to be allowed to know hers. But her wording had been curious and a little falsified... He shrugged, gave up, and went back to his office, and once again forgot about this strange acquaintance for the moment as he returned to the work before him, which furthermore was of the utmost importance, to him, to the country, indeed to the entire political situation at that time.


	12. Christmas Meeting

**Virtual pat on the back to any readers of the last chapter who realised that Mycroft is being "enigmatic" at Bletchley Park. The mention of the name Alan was, admittedly, a darned big hint. ;)**

 **We turn now back to Sherlock and John. If this chapter seems familiar, it is because, lazy as I am, I have borrowed chunks of it from a chapter of my story _The First Year_. **

* * *

The Christmas holidays began on one of those days on the edge of winter when the bare trees begin to sway erratically in the breezes that will later bring snow, and everyone shivers and wishes they had a scarf. Sherlock insisted on wearing a scarf whenever he was out of his school uniform, which looked a bit stupid sometimes, but which actually was quite a good idea with this unpredictable British weather. Most of the other boys found themselves rather envying his strange fashion sense.

The term never closed without a dreary sort of Christmas service in the chapel, and Mr and Mrs Holmes never failed to come, finding it rather more enjoyable than the boys did. Anyway, they had received a letter from John insisting that they come, because Sherlock was in the orchestra, and John wanted his parents to see him perform. This letter touched the Holmes parents, and though they would have come anyway, they were doubly persuaded.

Sherlock was furthermore a remarkable violinist. John had heard snippets of his playing – he mostly played in the practice-rooms, but when they were full he would practise in the dormitory, which wasn't technically allowed, but for some reason Mrs Hudson seemed to turn a blind eye (or rather, a deaf ear) to this – and knew that the orchestra truly were lucky to have him. And also it had been hinted by people other than Sherlock that the boy would be playing a solo. Not that he would ever mention it to anyone. He was probably embarrassed about it.

There he was. The orchestra had been set up in an awkward corner of the chapel, and the music-stands were all pressed up against each other, with the boys arranged little better. Sherlock was on the front row, his fringe drawn low over his eyes, and his brow furrowed as he pretended to scrutinise closely the music in front of him. His violin was in his lap and occasionally he made movements towards the bow, as if going to play it, before realising what he was doing and stopping.

The carol-service began at length: it was a fairly dull sort of service, containing carols interspersed with readings and an address from the headmaster. The orchestra provided an excellent backdrop for the carols, though it was a slightly odd one, as they didn't quite have the right proportion of instruments. It seemed very brassy with the occasional soaring violin – this was usually Sherlock, who seemed bored by some carols, but entirely swept away by the music of others, putting his entire self into his playing.

But near to the end of the service came his solo, and perhaps the boys were more than a little surprised when Sherlock came forth and stood rather nervously before the altar.

Then the music-master stepped forth, coughed once, and said:

'We will now hear a solo piece by the principal first violinist in the orchestra, Sherlock Holmes. It is called simply _Winter_ , and I am sure Sherlock is proud to be able to say that he composed it himself.'

A stunned silence met his words. The boys all knew that Sherlock was a remarkable musician. None of them knew that he composed as well. Some looked to John, as if wondering whether he had known about this: he, too, was astonished, and immensely curious as to whether Sherlock was any good at composing.

And it turned out he was.

There was more than a touch of Vaughan Williams in this piece that was filled with deep emotion, far more than Sherlock had ever expressed outside of music. Behind a dreamy, thoughtful façade there lingered a deep and mournful nostalgia; his violin seemed to sob on his behalf at points, and his hand trembled at his bow, as if he could scarcely eke out the notes. The piece perhaps lacked structure, and if there was a definite melody it was wispy and intangible – but there was no doubting the immense power of it. A couple of the parents found themselves in tears. The boys all stared in amazement. John was stunned.

He scurried off almost as soon as he had finished, and was in his seat even before the applause rang out. John searched for his friend over the heads that obscured his vision; he caught but a glimpse of flushed red cheeks hiding behind the sheet music for the carols that were to follow. It would be hard, though, to follow this melancholic performance with light-hearted Christmas carols, and the congregation launched only half-heartedly, it seemed, into _Hark the Herald_.

At last the service was over; the congregation moved as one to the dining-hall for mince pies and mulled wine, and only the Holmeses and a couple of other families were left waiting for the musicians to pack away their instruments.

They saw Sherlock carefully put his violin in its case, and then exchange a brief word with the music-master, who shook his hand warmly, and received only a small smile in return. Then Sherlock straightened, seemingly unaffected by the gazes that turned towards him, and came over to greet his parents.

'You were excellent, Sherlock,' Mrs Holmes said with a smile, going to hug him but then remembering that he really didn't do hugs.

'Thank you, Mummy,' said Sherlock in a distracted sort of voice. 'Are we going to the dining-hall?'

'Sherlock, you were so good!' cried John then, who had just disentangled himself from his pew and run over. Mrs Holmes threw her arms around him, but his eyes were still on Sherlock. 'I didn't know you composed.'

'I don't. Not often,' Sherlock shrugged.

'Only when you need to let stuff out,' John guessed, and his guess struck home in a remarkable manner. Sherlock did not reply, nor even blink; at last he tore his eyes away from John and blushed a little.

In truth, Sherlock had put everything into his piece. He may as well have broadcast his thoughts to the entire chapel. He had combined the mutual fear of being at war with those strange feelings that Mycroft's absence gave him – he had not, furthermore, received any letters from Mycroft since late November, and was becoming worried – and mixed with these emotions all of the contempt he felt for himself, all of his struggles, all of his very being. And then on top of that he had called it the pathetic _Winter_ , as if that could even begin to describe what he had taken a term to write.

He had known that someone might guess the real meanings of his composition. He had perhaps guessed that it would be John. Despite his faults, John was incredibly perceptive sometimes.

'Are we going to the dining-hall?' he said again, more quietly this time, indicating the door at the back of the chapel.

There was little more to say, and so they all headed off to the dining-hall for the promised refreshments. The mulled wine was non-alcoholic, and the mince pies mediocre, but most of the people seemed to be getting into the Christmas spirit, and with the hall decorated as it was, it all felt very festive. Chatter filled the air; the only table that was quiet was the Holmes's.

After a long few minutes of this awkward silence, Mrs Holmes said:

'Sherlock dear, what's wrong?'

'Mycroft's not coming home for Christmas, is he?' Sherlock said, avoiding her question somewhat.

Mrs Holmes sighed and shook her head. 'He's permanently occupied these days. I'm sure he's told you that.'

'But _Christmas_ ,' John piped up.

Mrs Holmes just smiled sadly at him.

Perhaps she didn't realised that it wasn't just that Mycroft wouldn't be home for Christmas that was worrying Sherlock. No, Sherlock feared, not without reason, that Mycroft was cutting ties with his family, little by little. Not turning up for Christmas Day was going a bit far though, so early on into this vile plot.

The name of Mycroft was not however mentioned again, and a conversation was suddenly struck up that seemed somewhat fake, but lightened the mood.

It was interrupted only by Mrs Hudson, who was coming round to make sure all of the boys had prepared their bags ready to go, and to say goodbye to those whom she wouldn't get chance to see later. A beaming smile was on her face as she approached their table; she patted both Sherlock and John on the shoulder before greeting the Holmes parents, who conversed with her briefly and cheerfully.

'Merry Christmas, Mr and Mrs Holmes,' said Mrs Hudson then. And, turning towards Sherlock and John: 'Merry Christmas, boys.'

'Merry Christmas, Mrs H,' said John and Sherlock as one.

Mrs Hudson smiled and moved on to the next table.

'Dear Mrs Hudson,' Mrs Holmes smiled. 'She's getting a little old, I think, and a little –'

She was astonished to be cut short by both Sherlock and John, who both at once cried: 'Don't insult Mrs H!'

And everyone around the table then grinned, not least the two boys. And Sherlock looked at John, and John looked at Sherlock, and each of them felt all of a sudden a new and vivid respect for the other, united at an unexpected moment by a common ally and a common feeling, where before they had never once agreed with each other. Perhaps they could get on after all...


	13. An Early Christmas Present

The days until Christmas were counted down with that precision that is particular to children. Harry had, of course, come home from school too, and been delighted to see her brother again; the two had become once again inseparable. And in the absence of Mycroft, they had seen it as their duty to take Sherlock on as a third sibling. Sherlock was at first reluctant, but, as the Christmas spirit began to penetrate him, despite his efforts to fend it off, he became almost normal, playing outside with them, and, when the weather was bad, playing cards inside, or sometimes retreating to read on his own.

It began to snow a short while before Christmas Day; this exhilarated John and Harry, who did not see snow as often in London as the Holmeses saw it out in the countryside. Mrs Holmes insisted on swathing them in Mycroft and Sherlock's old coats, mittens and woollen hats (which Mrs Holmes had knitted herself, and which were in a startlingly odd combination of green and purple); Sherlock refused this attention, and went out in just his coat and thin scarf, but didn't seem to notice the cold.

The high street of the village was already filled with snow, printed here and there by a footprint, and rutted all the way down by a single tyre track from a bicycle; but other than that the snow was pristine, and the street for now quiet. There were of course other evacuee children in the village, but evidently they didn't get up very early.

'It's so pretty!' cried Harry, dancing down the street and scooping snow off windowledges. 'Look at the icicles!' and she indicated with a gloved hand a threatening line of icy daggers that hung from one roof.

And when John looked up to inspect these icicles, Harry threw a snowball towards him that struck him on the shoulder, sending a spray of cold water down his neck.

'Hey!' cried John, and began to bundle up his own missile. He had scarcely finished it when Harry threw another snowball at him; he managed to duck just in time, and this one landed at Sherlock's feet. Sherlock, who was suddenly lost in thought, didn't notice.

The pair began to run up and down the street, throwing bigger and bigger snowballs at each other, and shrieking with delighted laughter; it was unclear who was winning this fight, and when it came to an end, or rather when they were both exhausted, they shook hands and called it a draw.

Then John turned to Sherlock, who was staring at his reflexion in the window of one of the shops.

'C'mon, Sherlock, let's have a three-person fight,' he said.

Sherlock started, and turned, and, almost automatically, began to craft his own snowball, very delicately, so that it was perfectly round. John suddenly caught the expression on his face, and said: 'What's wrong?'

'Mycroft used to like snowball fights,' Sherlock said vaguely; and then his expression changed dramatically, and, as if he had forgotten his words and thoughts already, he threw his snowball at John, and they dissolved happily into another fight.

* * *

They were wet and cold and tired when they turned back to go home, but immensely overjoyed, and still beaming from the excitement of the morning. The snow was beginning to melt beneath their feet, but a fresh fall was on the horizon, and they did not doubt that they would be able to go out again that afternoon.

Harry and John were talking animatedly; Sherlock scarcely took part in this conversation, but it was plain that he was not quite so detached as before. They were still chatting when they came to the door of the Holmeses' house, and so did not, perhaps, notice the conversation that came from within, and which stopped as they entered.

Redbeard came to greet them as they took their wet things off in the hallway, and Sherlock stroked him lovingly – he never showed so much love and care to anyone else as he did to Redbeard – and, furrowing his brow, inspected the dog and the hallway and said: 'I think we have a visitor.'

John and Harry followed his gaze. There beside all of the other shoes was a scruffy pair of brogues that John and Harry thought was familiar.

At first, John thought they might be Mycroft's: but he immediately dismissed the hypothesis, as Mycroft would never wear such battered shoes, and anyway, Sherlock would have noticed if they were Mycroft's. Then, suddenly, it occurred to him whose they were, and without saying a word, merely letting out an excited sort of noise, he ran into the next room, closely followed by Harry.

When Sherlock went after them, he found them in one of the armchairs embracing a middle-aged man with greying hair and a wan but kind smile. Sherlock guessed, correctly, that he was an engineer who worked for the railways, but he did not need this particular piece of information to guess that this man was Mr Watson, the evacuees' father.

'You must be John and Harry's father,' he said, without waiting to be introduced.

'And I presume that you are the famous Sherlock Holmes,' replied Mr Watson, grinning.

They shook hands cordially, and Sherlock looked questioningly towards his parents.

'This is Mr Watson's Christmas present to his children,' Mrs Holmes said. 'I invited him, actually, not expecting him to be able to come for very long, but he said he could afford to be here for a week or so over Christmas. It's nice to be able to reunite a family, and it's been very nice speaking to Mr Watson.'

She smiled over at the other man, who returned this smile.

'Thank you, Mrs Holmes,' said John at once.

'Oh, no, it's nothing, dear,' Mrs Holmes replied. 'Mr Watson, I was telling you about my son, of course…'

'I've heard a lot of good things about you,' Mr Watson said to Sherlock. Sherlock looked astonished. 'You're a talented young man, I hear. And a good friend for my John.'

Perhaps both Sherlock and John were surprised by this revelation, but both of them blushed and smiled and did not try to deny it.

'It's so good to see you, Father,' John said at last, and snuggled up to his father as if he was going to sleep in his arms. The image was rather beautiful, and Mrs Holmes sniffed a little. Sherlock felt a small pang somewhere around his heart, but could not place it.

The conversation moved on to something else, and continued until the fire began to burn low and the grandfather clock chimed five o'clock, at which point Mrs Holmes got up to make dinner, and Sherlock showed Mr Watson to the guest bedroom.

'How do you find John?' Mr Watson said when they were out of earshot of the others.

Surprised by this question, Sherlock did not reply for more than a moment. After a bit he said, rather generically: 'He's nice. He's popular at school and doing well. I presume he told you about the cricket victory?' Mr Watson nodded proudly. 'He's… well, he's normal,' he finished, and smiled a little humourlessly.

'Good. Good,' said Mr Watson. 'And are you and John indeed friends, as your mother has informed me?'

Sherlock looked perplexed. He closed his eyes a moment, as if that would allow him to better see his thoughts; then he said: 'I suppose we are, sir… Ah, this is the guest bedroom. Do make yourself at home.'

And even as Mr Watson did this, Sherlock made himself scarce, and had to retreat to his room to think on the question that had been asked of him, and which he wasn't sure he would ever be able to answer.


	14. A Late Christmas Present

It was just as well that Mrs Holmes prepared a spectacular Christmas dinner, and fed them more than sufficiently from the leftovers for a week or so afterwards, because they were scarcely into 1940 when it was announced that food would begin to be rationed. The adults charged themselves with learning meticulously the regulations surrounding rationing. The children were a little bewildered, but stoically said that they would endure whatever must be done to help with the war effort.

It had once again slipped their minds that they were at war. It was an easy thing to forget, what with the lack of events. Mr Holmes read _The Times_ in a desultory sort of fashion, so he could relate snippets about what was going on in other countries, but all they really needed to know was that the UK was still not yet affected. It was quiet. Too quiet, as Sherlock unhelpfully kept reminding them.

The day before they were due to go back to school, a parcel arrived addressed to Sherlock; he immediately recognised the writing on the label, and so, ignoring the curiosity of the others, he raced upstairs to open it in his room.

Even though he recognised the writing, he was astonished to find that Mycroft had sent him this. It was a box of food – sweets, a sugary cake, a bottle of ginger beer, two pots of jam and a few other oddments. He could only guess that it had been sent before rationing came into force. There was a letter, hurriedly written, underneath one of the jam jars, which read thus:

 _Sherlock – share these with the others. Take them to school if you like. Hope you enjoy them. Merry belated Christmas. Mycroft._

He was astounded and touched in equal measure, emotions he hadn't really believed himself capable of until now. He was immensely glad that the others weren't with him. He felt as if he might cry. Perhaps he didn't understand why he felt like that – he never would – but it reassured him somewhat both to know that Mycroft hadn't forgotten about him, and that neither of them had a heart composed entirely of stone.

A few minutes later he had cleared his head of any lingering sentimentality, and went to show John the food.

'We'll have a feast!' said John with a grin.

'We ought to let Harry take some,' Sherlock conceded, 'but other than that... you know I don't eat all that much. Have what you like.'

'Oh, no, it's your food,' John replied, though he knew full well that Sherlock would take weeks to eat all of this, even if he tried his very hardest. 'Shall we make a start on them, or save them for school?'

Sherlock shrugged.

'Only, I was thinking – it's your birthday soon, isn't it?'

At this Sherlock started. He presumed that his parents must have informed John of this fact. He certainly wouldn't have mentioned it.

'The 6th,' he murmured.

This happened to be the day after they started back at school, and John had evidently made a good note of that fact. 'We should have a midnight feast.'

'That's not allowed,' said Sherlock at once, furrowing his brow.

'And when did breaking the rules ever bother you?' countered John with a grin. 'Anyway, I bet even if Mrs H _did_ find out, she would make an exception for you.'

Sherlock didn't seem to be able to voice any more exceptions, but still seemed very hesitant.

'What is it?' asked John.

'Nothing,' said Sherlock. He stood and clutched the box to his chest. 'I'll pack this. We'll have a midnight feast on the 6th. Our dormy, I presume?'

John nodded.

'Just me, you and William?'

'Unless you want to invite anyone else.'

Sherlock shook his head.

'Then we'll have a midnight feast,' said John, clapping his hands in delight; and Sherlock, regaining the expression of perplexity that was so common on his face these days, left the room without a further word.

* * *

Harry was packed off on the train later that evening, with a bag of sweets, a slab of cake and one of the jars of jam. Her goodbye was perhaps tearful, but she didn't seem quite as nervous to be going off to boarding school as she had last term. Evidently she was rather enjoying it. The same, indeed, could be said of John, who had settled in very well and felt as if he had been to Sherlock's school all of his life.

The only thing Harry regretted was being unable to attend the midnight feast. She had heard about it, of course, and thought it a splendid idea; she wished Sherlock and very happy birthday for the 6th, and good luck with the feast. John wondered if they would need it. He was confident that it would go swimmingly.

Therefore on the evening of the 6th, John set an alarm clock to go off just before midnight, and placed it under his pillow. In his wardrobe was a stack of things that would be eaten that night – some of Mycroft's presents, and a few other oddments provided by Mrs Holmes, or bought from the village near the school. William, too, was excited for the feast. Sherlock didn't seem to react much to the idea of it.

When John's alarm went off, he quickly stifled it with his pillow and turned it off. William and Sherlock were awoken, but, hopefully, nobody in the neighbouring dormitories had heard it. John went and lit a little lamp that Sherlock had brought, and in this semi-darkness they began to prepare a feast fit for a king.

John kept his eyes on his clock, and at the stroke of midnight clapped Sherlock on the back and wished him a happy birthday. William did likewise, grinning. Sherlock looked a bit bewildered.

The food went down very quickly. The cake was marvellous, light and at a perfect level of sweetness; the ginger beer was also of a very fine variety, and Sherlock found himself wondering how Mycroft had got hold of all of these things. He supposed that they must pay him well at his place.

They ended with a number of the sweets, and had to stop each other from taking too many, lest they feel ill in the morning. When the meal was finished, John tidied everything away neatly, and swept up the crumbs that he could see in the half-light; a thrill still ran through him, and he wished the feast could have gone on for longer. Food seemed to taste twice as good eaten against the rules at the dead of night.

'Happy birthday, Sherlock,' he said again, putting his arm round his friend's shoulders.

Sherlock did not reply, but John was not worried by this. It was Sherlock's wont to be silent, especially when some emotion was bubbling inside of him.

The celebrations were thus concluded for the night, and they determined to sing to Sherlock at lunchtime the next day, just for added embarrassment; with everything cleared up, therefore, they went back to bed and tried to get some sleep.

* * *

Sherlock's "birthday proper" dawned bright and clear, and with the lingering smell of cake in the dormitory that John hoped nobody would notice. It was a Sunday, and so they were up later than usual; they had decided that they would give Sherlock his presents after chapel, and so they did not rush to get ready. They had, however, agreed that they would take a slice of cake to Mrs H, who they all knew deserved it, and so John went to wrap up one of the slices in a napkin; it was as he turned that he noticed Sherlock standing completely still by his bed.

He had his back to John; his arms were positioned as if he was buttoning his jacket, but his whole self was still, and his head was bowed slightly.

'Sherlock?' asked John in concern.

Sherlock started, and turned round. He assumed a neutral, almost bored expression, but he could not hide the slight redness that surrounded his eyes.

'Sherlock, have you been –'

'No,' said Sherlock stubbornly, and fastened the top button of his jacket. He made to leave the dormitory – William already had – but John put his hand on his shoulder.

'What's wrong?' asked John.

'Nothing,' said Sherlock.

'Sherlock, if you didn't enjoy the midnight feast – I'm sorry.'

Sherlock looked directly at John for the first time in this conversation. His gaze was unwavering, and made John shudder a little.

'On the contrary,' said Sherlock. 'Nobody has ever done anything like that for me before... John, thank you.'

His voice was so frank, so honest, that it took John completely by surprise, and he thought of replying only when Sherlock had left the dormitory and gone out of sight.

A small smile came onto John's face. 'You're very welcome, my friend,' he murmured, and followed.


	15. Three Letters

**Immense thanks must go to those still with this story. I hope you will continue to enjoy it. :) We're back to Mycroft in this chapter, just because I felt we'd abandoned him a bit.**

* * *

Mycroft was not often in London. He could remember going on day-trips as a child, and his memory stretched about as far as Sherlock getting excited about some exhibition in the British Museum, and finding the Underground less interesting than he had thought it would be. It was the Underground that he took to Pall Mall on this particular occasion, after stopping at a cafeteria on Baker Street which had been highly recommended to him, and though he found the rattling train little conducive to useful thought, he knew that his destination would more than make up for that.

It was a nondescript sort of house set slightly back from the street. Blinds had been drawn across the windows, and there were blackout curtains hung ruggedly to the sides, but what could be seen through them pleased Mycroft. Therefore he entered and hung his hat upon a stand near to the door, in a long hallway.

He did not need to introduce himself to anyone, nor indeed make his presence felt in the slightest. The floor was carpeted, and the walls soundproofed. A smile flickered at the corner of his mouth. He found himself a corner, set down his briefcase on his desk, and began to rifle through the documents that it contained, whilst his hand went absently to a cigarette-case in his pocket.

An hour later, he was still in that same position, smoking lightly, and with his eyes fixed on whatever papers it was that deserved his attention; he had not been disturbed once, even by those men with whom he shared a room, which he found at once remarkable and deeply refreshing. It was just his luck, then, to be assailed at that point by a young gentleman whose manner caused Mycroft to look up. Here was a curiosity of a man – scarcely older than Mycroft, but holding himself like a man who knows he is clever, and that he holds a position of importance. Someone working for the government, no doubt. Mycroft did not know him, but, guessing his reason for approaching him, immediately took the envelope that was handed to him.

He did not even need to read the missive. He merely scrawled a response on a sheet of paper, slid it into the S.A.E. that had been provided, and made a note to drop it into the post on his return from London. The men of the Diogenes Club, indeed any member of the general public who happened to catch sight of Mycroft on his way home, would not, perhaps, guess that this letter had made him considerably more intrigued and rather more excited than he had been in quite a while.

* * *

It was the second letter that he received that day that required closer attention. Mycroft had hardly walked into his office when the woman calling herself Anthea brought him the envelope, which he opened quickly, recognising Sherlock's handwriting on the front; then he began to read the letter within.

 _Dear Mycroft,_

 _Thank you very much for your Christmas present. It was a nice surprise, and John, Harry and I enjoyed the food very much._

This was typical Sherlock: if it sounded stilted and forced, it was because Sherlock was hopeless at expressing his feelings, and so employed someone else's words to do it for him. If he resorted to that, it meant that he truly did appreciate whatever it was had been done for him.

 _John organised a midnight feast on my birthday. I'm not sure why, but it was all right, I suppose. Luckily we didn't have any important lessons the next day. We gave some of the cake to Mrs H and she patted me on the head and said I was lovely. I don't believe most people would agree._

Mycroft chuckled. He had never been able to explain Mrs Hudson's soft spot for him and Sherlock.

 _John is in a quandary at the moment. I don't think I've mentioned Clara before, have I? She goes to Harry's school, and John got a letter from Harry saying that she thinks she likes Clara more than is proper. Harry is upset and confused, of course, and John doesn't know what to think. He's only told me. I don't know why. I haven't the least idea what to do. I don't expect you do, either, but I thought I ought to mention it._

 _The last thing I should mention is that Redbeard is ill at the moment. I wish I could go home to visit him. Mummy says he should get better, but that whatever it is he's got is really quite serious._

 _I hope you are well. Please do write back._

 _Your brother,_

 _Sherlock Holmes._

Mycroft sat back in his chair. He was conscious of the fact that Anthea had returned with his usual cup of tea, and was standing beside his door, which was ajar. He silently invited her to come in, at the same time folding the letter and pondering whether to file it under "N" for "no idea what to make of this". He received the tea half in his own thoughts, and did not even notice Anthea leave, much less glimpse the worried expression on her lips.

At long last, steadied by the tea, he began to pen a reply.

 _My dear Sherlock,_

 _You are most welcome. If you wish for more of anything that I sent you, I shall very easily be able to procure it for you. And a belated happy birthday for the 6th._

 _My dear boy, John is normal. I thought you knew that. And Mrs H is nice to everyone. Just go along with it._

 _You are right: I haven't the least idea what to do re Harry and Clara either. It would not, perhaps, be tactful to discourage such a relationship, but nor would it be advisable to encourage it. I should leave it to the people who know what they are doing when it comes to emotions._

 _I have heard about Redbeard. I too hope that he gets better soon._

 _Your brother,_

 _Mycroft Holmes_

* * *

It only occurred to Mycroft when he had posted this letter that all of his letters were similarly hurried and stilted in tone. He found himself hoping that Sherlock didn't mind – but, deep in his heart somewhere, he knew that he most probably did. A slight twinge clutched at him for a moment, but he dismissed it, and by the end of the day had forgotten it. Such was the manner of the eldest Holmes brother.


	16. Mental Stimulation

**I do apologise if it seems as if time has sped up a bit in this story. Nothing much happened in Britain for a good deal of 1940 - well, actually, somebody is probably going to jump in and tell me that this and that happened, but I don't believe it would have much affected a rural boy's school.**

* * *

John's first year at Sherlock's school went by fairly smoothly. He excelled in both academic studies and in sports, and quickly came to be one of the most popular students among teachers and boys alike; he had a wide circle of good acquaintances, and a few friends, including some of the boys in the upper years who usually surrounded Greg Lestrade. He got on well with William Farrell from his dormitory; it was however the other boy in the room with whom his relationship was rather more complicated.

He considered Sherlock a friend. They had after all shared a room for a year, and they had been effective brothers: at the Holmes's, he and Harry had always tried to involve Sherlock in everything, and this had sometime succeeded. In the absence of Mycroft, Sherlock seemed to want someone else to cling to, and he clung to John, a little in the fashion of a limpet: quietly and without much meaning to.

Sherlock was however an oddity. He never referred to anyone as his friend. It would be "my acquaintance John" or "that Lestrade boy" or "Farrell in my dormy". He rarely conversed in any other way but quietly and in a forced sort of manner. Much as he seemed to appreciate John's company – or at the least, he didn't exactly spurn it – he remained just as introverted around him as if he had been on his own. Where John's grades went up through his acquaintance with Sherlock and assorted others, Sherlock's grades stayed much the same. It was a peculiar phenomenon, but not one that was alien to Sherlock, and so there was nothing in particular to comment upon.

The first year, then, was as normal as it could have been. During the Easter holidays, Mr Watson was welcomed into the Holmes's house with as much warmth as he had been at Christmas. He was still ruddy-faced and smiling as ever, and, as he had at Christmas, he seemed not to rue his children's association with Sherlock and his family.

Meanwhile of Mycroft there was little sign: but nobody really spoke of that, not because they did not care for Mycroft, but because it was evident that he did not want them to.

* * *

It went by far too quickly, that first year, and it did not seem long after the snow had melted away that the days were filled with glorious sunshine. The late spring was warm and lazy, and the school days seemed to be occupied mostly by cricket and cold drinks. Everyone eagerly awaited the half-term holiday, which came at last: and Sherlock and John joined Harry at home ready for the week of relaxation.

A particularly warm day encouraged John to suggest going down to the pool. Harry was eager to dip her feet in the cool water, and to climb the trees there; John went and grabbed a towel, and Sherlock went to find Redbeard, who had, incidentally, recovered from whatever illness he had had, but was still a little weak. Sherlock did not like to comment that the dog was getting old. He fitted a lead to his collar, and pulled on his shoes, before meeting Harry and John on the drive.

It was quite marvellous to be in the glade and paddle in the river after a walk with the sun beating down on them. Sherlock let Redbeard join Harry and John, who were splashing around in the water, and trying to drench each other; then he clambered into a bough of one of the trees, and dived into a book he had brought, something about chemistry.

A few minutes later John halted a moment, turning his head a little. He glanced at Harry, who had stopped to watch him.

'Can you smell that?' he asked.

'Smell what?' Harry took a breath, and choked a little, which was as good an affirmative as any.

John bit the inside of his lip. He recognised the smell, and climbed out of the river, before going around the tree to see what Sherlock was up to. The other boy seemed to have given up on his book, and now instead had a cigarette between his fingers. Small swirls of smoke dissolved into the light breeze.

'Sherlock, what are you doing?'

Sherlock seemed to start from some sort of trance, whether self-induced or brought on by the tobacco John could not tell. 'Nothing.'

'You're smoking.'

'What of it?'

John hesitated for a long moment. 'Smoking's bad.'

'According to some people.'

'There was a study –'

'Maybe there was,' Sherlock said, shrugging indifferently, 'but there are studies to the contrary as well. Would you care to tell me why I should believe the one and not the other?'

'It smells bad,' John said at last.

'Well, don't stand next to me, then.'

'I can smell it from the pool.'

Sherlock furrowed his brow. He put the cigarette to his lips, drew in a long breath, and then stubbed the cigarette out on the tree trunk.

'Thank you,' said John.

'Now I shan't be able to concentrate,' grumbled Sherlock. John raised one eyebrow. 'Smoking helps me to think. There is nothing better to stimulate the mind than tobacco.' He paused. 'Well, there is, but you would be even more angry at me if I were to smoke that.'

'Won't your mother be angry?'

'Why should she be?'

'It's a dirty habit.'

'Some say it's fashionable... And why should my mother be angry? She doesn't have to know.' Sherlock contemplated John's expression for a few moments before bursting out: 'You'd tell her?'

John looked deeply perplexed.

'Don't tell her, John.'

'And why shouldn't I?'

'Because...' Sherlock seemed to argue with himself for a good few seconds before continuing: 'Because we're friends.'

'We are?' A smile tugged at the corner of John's mouth. He could not deny that he was a little astonished by this comment. 'Well, that's one thing I never thought I would hear you say, at any rate.'

The cigarette fell from Sherlock's fingers into the undergrowth. He seemed just as surprised to have said that as John was to have heard it. He didn't know what else to say, that much was evident; he just gave a vague, almost pained smile, and turned away, and did not say anything else for the rest of the morning.

* * *

 **A/N I found it interesting to discover that even in the early 20th century, studies suggested that smoking was harmful to one's health. Nevertheless these studies were widely ignored, and smoking reached the height of fashion in the 30s and 40s.**


	17. An Armistice

The boys all dreaded evening prep. It was enough to endure a day of lessons without having to spend two hours after dinner in the library, silently working on their homework from the day, under the eye, it seemed, of all of the strictest teachers in the school.

Sherlock was unusual in that he didn't seem to resent this time as much as the others. He didn't like schoolwork much, except in those very specific subject areas that he favoured, but he appreciated the silence, and, when the masters weren't looking, he could be seen to be thinking rather than writing. It was rare that he would so much as make a noise during prep, and so rather surprised John on this particular June evening when he got up to ask to get something from his dormitory.

'I've left a book I need there,' he explained to the teacher on duty.

The master glared at him a little over his spectacles, but eventually conceded to his request. 'Very well. But be quick about it.'

Sherlock raced off in his usual fashion, and the boys who had been disturbed by this intervention settled back down to work.

But a few minutes passed without him returning, and the teacher began to glare at the door to the library; then he went to John and said quietly:

'Can you go and find Sherlock, and tell him to come back here?'

The teachers, it seemed, trusted John greatly, where they did not trust Sherlock much at all. John nodded and sprang up, and headed off in search of his friend.

* * *

He found him not in the dormitory, but in the deserted common-room, with his ear pressed to the wireless, which was playing at a very low volume. He did not even look up at John's entrance, and only noticed him when the boy had crossed the room.

'What are you listening to?' asked John.

'Ssh,' said Sherlock, leaning in closer.

John knelt down, forgetting that he was supposed to take Sherlock back to prep, and listened. Among the crackles he could just about distinguish a deep foreign voice. The broadcast was, it seemed, in French.

Sherlock had a natural flair for languages. He seemed to pick them up as if they were his mother tongue, and therefore hated French and Latin lessons, because he was so far ahead of the others. John too was skilled at languages, but wasn't half as good as Sherlock, and could only understand snatches of this broadcast.

He caught something about battle in France, and the enemy, and from various other fragments concluded that this was some sort of call to arms. When the broadcast was finished, Sherlock turned off the radio, and saw John looking at him in confusion.

'Mycroft told me to listen to that,' Sherlock said vaguely, standing. 'Mr Jones isn't too angry at me, is he?'

'He'll be angry at both of us if we don't hurry back to prep,' John told him, and therefore they both ran back to the library.

* * *

John waited until they were back in their dormitory to demand an explanation. Sherlock paused for a moment, as if wondering if he could be bothered to explain his actions, and then said:

'That was Charles de Gaulle, a French general. He wants to resist against the French government, and he was calling on French people who are in England to join him.'

'Why does he want to resist?' asked John.

Sherlock furrowed his brow. 'Pétain, the head of the French government, wants to sign an armistice with Germany. – Have you not heard about that? – France is just about overwhelmed, and –'

'I heard about them being overpowered,' John said. 'I didn't realise they wanted to surrender.'

'Some see it as the only option.' Sherlock shrugged. 'Some don't. Hence _la Résistance_.'

John paused a moment, and then said: 'But why did Mycroft tell you to listen to his broadcast?'

He had struck some sort of chord within Sherlock, and the other boy looked away, hesitating for a long moment before admitting: 'I haven't the least idea.'

* * *

Four days later, France surrendered.

The broadcast by General de Gaulle had not been widely heard, but the actions of the French government could hardly be escaped. The announcement on the 22nd of June that they were to sign an armistice with Germany was reported in all of the newspapers, talked about by all of those who had been following the politics of the war.

Sherlock read the article over breakfast, again and again, as if hoping to divine some secret meaning from it. John too had read it, and found it a deeply moving article, if one looked at it from the French point of view, but he didn't really understand Sherlock's obsession with it. He remembered the mention of Mycroft, and supposed that that must have had something to do with it.

At last Sherlock folded up the newspaper and cast it aside, before picking up a bread roll and beginning to shred it absently. 'The war's coming closer,' he said.

'Yes,' John murmured.

'If France have surrendered, then we're the next target,' Sherlock continued, surprising John a little: he didn't usually speak this much at breakfast, or indeed during the course of an entire day.

'Well,' said John, 'well, we're an island, so we can hope that that will give us an advantage.'

Sherlock nodded, and began to nibble some of the crumbs that he had created.

'And if they come over here, they'll have the British to contend with.' John chuckled a little, and sipped at his drink. 'We're fuelled by tea. We can't go wrong.'

'Would you...' Sherlock paused. 'Would you fight, if you were old enough?'

'Yes.' John did not hesitate. 'Or at least help. I'm not sure I'd be that good at fighting.' His eyes met Sherlock's. 'Would you?'

Sherlock was silent for a while. Then he murmured: 'I don't know...' and let the conversation drop.


	18. Blitzkrieg

**I do apologise for the lateness of this chapter. If you know anything about current British politics, you'll probably know that they are, if not more entertaining, at least rather more absorbing than fanfiction, and I've only just managed to disentangle myself.**

 **This chapter has been pretty much finished for a while; the themes of war within it seem even more poignant now with the anniversaries of events in WWI of late.**

* * *

The first bombs fell during the summer holidays, as the enemy started to target RAF bases and important communications points up and down the country. From the little village where the Holmeses lived, it felt as if nothing had happened, indeed that nothing had changed for months now; the newspapers told them otherwise, and the children all shuddered to read the terrible accounts of war: this war that was suddenly now on their doorstep.

Otherwise, the summer holidays were fairly ordinary. Boring, even, as Sherlock put it. Mr Watson was invited over for a couple of weeks, and this drew Harry and John's attention away from Sherlock, which pleased him; the weeks seemed to fly by, and it was a perfect surprise to be going back to school again that September, a year after war had broken out, a year since the young Watsons had become part of the Holmes household.

* * *

'Sherlock dear,' said Mrs Holmes on the school drive, leaning close so she would be heard over the rabble of schoolboys, 'you must try to be friends with John this year.'

'He's got friends,' Sherlock shrugged. 'And I did try, but it didn't work.'

'You didn't try hard enough,' Mrs Holmes informed him. 'He wants to be friends with you. You need to understand that.'

'I don't want friends,' Sherlock muttered, and dragged his suitcase off to his dormitory.

Mrs Holmes said a much warmer farewell to John, who hugged her; then she watched the two boys head up towards the school building, the one with a quick, uneven pace, the other at a slower speed, stopping to chat with various boys who hailed him. She wished Sherlock would be – well, normal, like John. She supposed she ought to be proud of having unusual children, but she found that she wasn't much. It was too hard work sometimes.

* * *

They had scarcely returned to school and settled into the regime when, one fateful night, John, Sherlock and William, along with the rest of the school, were rudely awoken by the loud wail of the air-raid siren. It cut through the night, and Sherlock sat up straight away; the others sprang out of bed once they had cleared their eyes of sleep.

'This isn't a drill, is it?' William Farrell said at length. He had been overtaken by a deep sense of foreboding.

'No,' murmured Sherlock, squinting into the darkness.

'We should get to the shelter,' John said briskly, kicking a pile of clothes that he knew was at the end of his bed so they wouldn't trip over it – he greatly wanted to shine a torch, but the blackout prohibited that. The three boys scrambled to the door and went out into the corridor, where they met a shadowy mass of silent schoolboys, all filing down the corridor in their dressing-gowns.

It was only when they were outside that they were conscious of the sound of aeroplanes in the distance; such noises quickened their paces, because they could not tell whether or not these planes were coming closer, or even which side they belonged to. The air-raid siren was still wailing into the night.

The journey down the lawn was immensely surreal. Nobody dared to speak – they had been told to be silent in the practices, but many had disobeyed that: yet now, when there was a very real threat, even the most talkative boys had lost their tongues. Most were scared speechless.

Boys, teachers, other staff all piled into the shelter, which was dimly lit by a succession of electric lamps. There was a provision of blankets, but these would not be used for sleeping that night, only for keeping warm whilst they listened and waited.

William went off then with one of his friends; John and Sherlock stood together, not really knowing what to do, before sitting down opposite each other in one corner and losing themselves in their own thoughts.

It would have been safe to chatter down here, and indeed some of the teachers quietly discussed important matters, but still few of the boys were inclined to speak. Therefore there reigned an uneasy quiet, of the sort that causes great tension to build up.

The school was some distance away from that great conurbation that is the capital of the UK, but though they did not hear the first explosion, they certainly felt the ground tremble. A great cry went up, and some people stood, as if they feared the earth in which they hid; everyone exchanged uneasy glances, no longer doubting, if they had, that this was a real air-raid.

'London,' murmured John suddenly. 'They're bombing London.'

Sherlock did not reply. He was listening, and had, unusually for him, registered and understood the anxiously terrified expression on John's face. There were however no words to be said. At the first trembling, all of the boys had begun to mutter, and a silent accord had passed between the teachers; they then all fell silent, awaiting the next with a morbid fascination.

The next, it seemed, was a quick succession of explosions, creating irregular trembling that had scarcely faded before the next lot. The contrast between that and the silent stillness of the shelter was striking. It was deeply surreal. Nobody knew how to react. All of them had understood that London was being bombarded by the enemy. None of them had ever known such a thing happen.

It is a curious thing, when one is terrified and wants nothing more than for the night to be over, that time seems to go by painfully slowly, like sand in an egg-timer: and yet when morning arrives, it is as if the night has not happened. The last bomb fell, and all of England fell silent, and the boys seemed to awaken from some strange slumber. Some had closed their eyes, and now opened them, but they had not been in the least asleep.

Sherlock, who had been deep in troubled thought, at last looked up, and, feeling something leaning against him, looked to his side. He was surprised to find John huddled up to him, his eyes downturned. He wondered whether he was supposed to have comforted the boy. He wondered what John could possibly be thinking. He was shaking lightly, Sherlock realised.

A breathless half hour passed before the all-clear rang out. John lifted his head uncertainly. Sherlock looked down at him, his face expressing as much pity as he was capable of.

'It's over,' Sherlock said quietly.

The teachers were beginning to get up, and to instruct the boys to go back to their dormitories and get some sleep. Ha! None of them would be able to sleep that morning. But the boys obediently stood and began to file out of the shelter, the stuffy dark shelter that would be the subject of so many nightmares. Sherlock clambered to his feet; seeing that John did not make to follow, he hesitated, and then thrust out his hand.

John clutched it and staggered upright. His legs did not feel as if they would support him. It was only once the teachers had lit a few lamps that Sherlock saw that his friend's face was white as a sheet.

Much to John's surprise, he found at that moment Sherlock's arm around his shoulders.

'Thank you,' he whispered.

Sherlock did not quite understand what he was being thanked for, but acknowledged it nonetheless.

When at last they were free of the air-raid shelter, their attention was immediately drawn by what they at first took to be a particularly spectacular sunrise, but which they then realised was flickering. On the horizon there was a band of orange light, and those with the best eyesight could make out smoke above it.

'It's London,' said Sherlock. 'London's burning...'

'My father!' burst out John.

He writhed free of Sherlock's grasp, and ran to get a better view. 'Sherlock, my father's there! In London!'

His voice must have carried more than he intended it to, because he attracted the attention of a good number of the boys, who all turned to him and looked immensely sorry for him. John felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see William Farrell.

'Ask Mrs H if you can use the telephone,' the boy suggested, his heart clenching as he saw the panic on John's face.

'We don't have a telephone at home,' John said in a very small voice. His eyes did not leave the burning city.

'There's a post-office in the village. You could wire home.'

'I can't afford it,' John stammered.

'I can.'

Both John and William turned in astonishment. They had not known that Sherlock had caught any of the conversation: and now the boy looked almost defiant, as if he meant no less than to defend England. Before they could reply, however, he ran off. A minute later he returned, and said:

'Mrs H says we can go into the village. The post-office will surely be open today. Come on!'

John and William stared at him as if they hadn't understood a word of what he had said. Sherlock looked exasperated, took another breath, and explained:

'The post-office will be open now. It isn't usually open on Sundays, but they'll have opened it today, I'm sure. You can send a telegram from there. I'll pay for it. We can wait for a reply. Come on!'

He had already pulled on his coat and scarf, which he had brought down to the shelter in case he got cold; John put his on, looking a little dazed. Then Sherlock, not much wanting to wait for the other boy, put his arm in John's and practically dragged him down the drive, and down the road towards the little village that fitted cosily into the shadow of the school, and which the boys visited occasionally, usually to send a letter or buy sweets.

The air-raid of the night had evidently kept everyone else awake too, for though few people were out in the village, it was rather noisier than a normal Sunday morning. The post-office was not yet busy, however, and Sherlock went quickly to ask about sending a telegram to London.

'We can't guarantee that it will get there,' said the woman at the desk uncertainly.

'It's our only hope,' said Sherlock.

Therefore John wrote his telegram, and it was taken to a back room to be transmitted to London; the time spent waiting for a reply – which Sherlock had paid for, incidentally – was quite the worst half-hour of John's life. Every time the woman moved, he started, as if she was about to impart upon him the terrible news that he so dreaded. Sherlock became a little uneasy himself, both because of John's plight, and because he didn't really know how to comfort the other boy.

At last the woman disappeared into the back room, and returned with the response; John almost snatched it from her, and read it quickly with frightened eyes.

Then, without warning, he dissolved into tears: for a moment Sherlock feared the worst, but then he saw that John was smiling. The boy thrust the paper into Sherlock's hands, and Sherlock read this: _Safe. Glad you are too. Daddy._

'Thank God,' said Sherlock simply.

'But what about Harry?' said John suddenly.

'She'll be safe,' Sherlock assured him.

'No, not that – she won't know about Dad!'

'We can wire her as well.'

'I –' John swallowed. 'I don't want you to pay for all these telegrams.'

Sherlock shrugged. 'I don't mind. I say, miss – might we send another wire?'

When the second telegram was sent, Sherlock, who had been absent-mindedly examining the newspapers, found himself almost suffocated by a tight embrace. John had thrown his arms around him and sounded as if he was sobbing into his coat. Sherlock panicked inwardly. He didn't much like hugs.

'Sherlock,' said John at last, emerging. 'Sherlock, you're such a good friend.'

'I am?' Sherlock, far from being modest, was entirely baffled.

'Yes! Yes, you are.' John slipped his arm into Sherlock's. 'C'mon, let's go back up to school. I want to tell Mrs H my father's safe.'

And he practically dragged a very bewildered Sherlock out of the shop.

'John,' said Sherlock suddenly.

'Mm?'

'I don't think anyone's ever called me a good friend before.'

'Really?'

'Really... Though to be honest, I've never had a friend before.'

'Sherlock!' John evidently thought the other boy was joking.

'No, really. John –' and Sherlock abandoned whatever he was going to say in favour of merely smiling at John, tightening his grip on his arm, and saying, quite unexpectedly, 'Thank you.'


	19. Helping Out

It was just as they were walking up from the post-office that they noticed that everyone in the school grounds seemed to be gravitating towards the main hall. John called out to one boy, who told them that an impromptu assembly had been called, and that all the boys were to attend.

'Coming,' said John, pulling off his coat and straightening his clothes. Sherlock imitated him and followed.

The hall was already mostly full, and Sherlock and John found seats on the unpopular front row, next to a smattering of teachers. The headmaster, who normally led assemblies, had not yet appeared. John furrowed his brow and murmured: 'I wonder what this is about?'

He often asked Sherlock such questions, knowing that the other boy had more often than not worked out what was going on; Sherlock merely shrugged, and said that perhaps there was to be some talk on air raid safety.

At last the headmaster appeared, and everyone fell silent.

'Good morning, everyone,' he said. 'Thank you for coming this morning. I'm sorry to have called you all together at such an inconvenient time. I hope you are all well after last night; it is partly on the subject of last night that I wish to speak to you.

'You are probably aware that London has experienced some severe bombing by enemy aircraft. The number of casualties is still uncertain, but the destruction is immense. A moment of silence, then, for all those suffering in our capital –'

The boys hardly dared to breathe during this minute or so of absolute quiet; all of them were stifled by emotion, even Sherlock, whose reaction to John's panic and subsequent relief seemed to have excited his entire self. At length the headmaster spoke again.

'I have been in contact for several weeks with many different organisations in the capital and elsewhere, and, following the events of the night, I have confirmed a decision to offer some of this school building as an overflow hospital for civilian and military casualties. We shall receive a number of those in the medicinal profession, whom we shall house for the most part in the masters' quarters. The sick-bay and the gymnasium will be used for casualties. If you yourselves should require attention by the nurse, she will now receive you in her house, which is in the village, unless it is an emergency.

'This will of course be a chaotic time for the school, but I hope you appreciate what an important role we shall play in this time of war. Anyone who wishes to volunteer to help should speak to me or to the nurse.

'Thank you.'

The music-master, who had been seated by the piano, then struck up the National Anthem, and the boys sung with rather more passion than usual before filing silently out of the hall. Sherlock and John headed to their dormitory, the former to read, the latter to write a couple of letters.

'You should volunteer,' Sherlock said almost straight away on leaving the hall.

'Volunteer?... Why?'

'Well, you want to be a doctor, don't you?'

John flushed very slightly. 'I don't know... I might do. How do you know that?'

'I didn't know it, I deduced it,' replied Sherlock in that annoying manner of his.

'I might volunteer,' said John thoughtfully. 'I'll go to the nurse – tell her I'm interested. What do you think we'll have to do?'

'Act as messengers, I imagine,' said Sherlock. 'It would be good experience.'

'You could volunteer with me,' suggested John.

Sherlock looked somewhat horrified. 'Me? Volunteer for a hospital?'

'Maybe not then,' said John, grinning a little. Caring for and reassuring injured people, indeed even running errands out of the goodness of one's heart, didn't match Sherlock's personality in the slightest, and he couldn't imagine the other boy doing any of those things.

'I think I'll pass on that one,' Sherlock said, and went back to his dormitory even as John headed off in search of the nurse.

* * *

 _Dear Harry,_

 _Our school's been turned into a hospital! Well, not all of it, just the sick bay and the gym. The first casualties came yesterday. It was a bit horrible to see them – some of them are people who were injured in the bombing, and some are army men who've been invalided home. I've volunteered to help. (Sherlock hasn't, naturally.) I was allowed to shadow one of the doctors, and it was actually really interesting but a bit harrowing to be honest. There was one man who had been shell shocked. He was perfectly fine except when there were loud noises. Then there was a man who had been shot in the shoulder – his wound had actually mostly healed because they had managed to get the bullet out pretty quickly, but for some reason he was convinced he'd been shot in the leg._

 _Then there were the patients who were probably going to die... I'm sorry, Harry, this probably isn't a nice letter to read. You probably wonder why I've decided to do all this. It's because I wanted to help, and because I quite want to be a doctor when I'm older. I thought that this experience might put me off, but it's only encouraged me. It's not the most pleasant of professions, but it's so interesting and really satisfying when you help someone and they heal and they smile so widely and thank the doctors who treated them._

 _Did you hear about the raid last night? Sherlock sent another telegram to Father – he keeps doing that; I feel so guilty about spending all his money – and he's fine. I suppose he would be – he's not often in London, driving trains._

 _How are things with you? I hope you're well. I hope your friends are all right too._

 _John_

* * *

 _Dear John,_

 _I'm fine, and so are my friends, thank you._

 _My school's a hospital too! Well, it's probably smaller than yours, but we have a few injured soldiers in the gym. What you're doing sounds really interesting – and it's similar to what Molly's doing. She's volunteering too. I told her about what you said and she said that she felt the same way, though I'm not sure she wants to be a doctor, more a biologist. She says it's a shame Sherlock couldn't be a volunteer as well. She seems to have a higher opinion of Sherlock than most people. She's only met him once. It's weird._

 _We keep having to go down to the air raid shelter. It's horrible down there but it's definitely necessary. I'm so glad we're out of London though. It sounds horrible there. Clara had a friend of a friend who was killed the other day when her house was bombed. Apparently they didn't manage to get to the shelter in time. It's horrid. There have been so many pictures in the paper – I suppose you've seen them – a lot of the girls can't bear to read the newspaper any more._

 _I hope you're well! And Sherlock too! He sounds as if he's much the same as ever. You need to get him out of his shell a bit._

 _See you at half-term, I hope! There's another cricket match between our school and yours! We'll beat you this time, I just know it!_

 _Harry_

* * *

'Molly wants you to be a volunteer,' John said in an offhand kind of manner, looking up from Harry's letter towards Sherlock, who was lying on his bed reading the book about forensics that he had borrowed again from Greg Lestrade.

'What does Molly care what I do?' said Sherlock, yawning.

John shrugged and grinned a little. 'I think she quite likes you.'

'She's only met me once.'

'She'll see you again, at half-term,' said John. 'She'll be coming over for the cricket-match.'

'Oh God, not again,' murmured Sherlock.

John laughed. 'It'll be fine. She just wants to be friends. You need friends.'

'No, I don't.'

'Yes, you do.'

'One's quite enough.'

They held each other's gaze for a moment, and then both of them looked away. It was an argument that neither could win, and a quandary that John still hadn't the least idea how to solve.

'Anyway, half-term's weeks off yet,' said John. 'Plenty of time to prepare to meet people.' He winked.

Sherlock just grunted and went back to his book.


	20. Just Not Cricket

_Dear Mycroft_ ,

 _Apparently Harry's school are coming over again to play cricket. I might end up running into that annoying Molly girl again. Perhaps I shall escape to the library. Mycroft, I hate having to interact with people. John's all right, I suppose, but most people aren't. However did you cope?_

 _Term's been all right so far. Nothing has happened. I came top in Chemistry in the last test. I'm middling in everything else. John's top in Biology and History, which is a strange mix._

 _How are you? You haven't written in ages, Mycroft. I know you're busy but I really hope you're all right. Really I do. I worry about you, my dear brother. – God, I'm starting to sound like you. But truly, Mycroft. Write back soon. Even if there is nothing to say._

 _Sherlock_

* * *

Mycroft nibbled the inside of his lip a little, his fingers absently creasing the edges of this latest letter. It was true that he hadn't replied to the last one, which had arrived two weeks ago now. He didn't often find the time. And anyway –

He had been berated by that Anthea girl. _You should write back. He's your brother._ Like it mattered to her. And why should he take advice about social convention from a woman who spent most of her time silently typing?

* * *

 _Dear Sherlock,_

 _I'm sorry I didn't have time to reply to your last letter. I hope this missive finds you well. Well done for coming top in Chemistry. I knew you had it in you to do well._

 _Mycroft_

* * *

'What's wrong, Sherlock?'

His eyes flicked towards the girl who followed him like a lamb following a shepherd, or like she thought he was her guardian angel. She had made several comments to him on the way down to the cricket-pitch, but he had ignored most of them. This one, however, made him shudder a little.

'Nothing.'

'Really.'

He tried to shrug her off. She must have hazarded a guess that something was wrong, as a last-ditch attempt at starting a conversation. His emotions couldn't possibly have been that visible.

'Sherlock, you can tell me. I won't tell anyone else.'

Sherlock sat down heavily on a tussock of grass, a short distance away from the other spectators. Molly Hooper sat next to him, still staring at him in that disconcertingly penetrative manner.

For a moment he regarded her. He didn't know her all that well – at all, indeed. Yet he knew that she told the truth when she said she wouldn't tell anyone. She was trustworthy – that much was obvious.

But Sherlock Holmes had never been one to reveal his personal problems, not to his family, not to anyone.

A breeze caught his blazer. A piece of paper rustled slightly in his inside pocket. He winced a little, and his eyes, quite by accident, caught Molly's. He drew a breath, and said:

'I think my brother's trying to distance himself from me.'

'Your brother? – Oh, is he the one who went to war?'

'I presume Harry told you.' She nodded. 'Yes. Mycroft. He's –' He paused for a long moment. 'I think he's working for the secret service, so obviously he can't tell me that much, and obviously he's very busy. But he doesn't write to me as much anymore, and when he does he –'

Molly threw him a sympathetic glance. 'You must be very close.'

'Close? Hardly!' Sherlock allowed himself a chuckle. 'Mycroft and I don't get on. Never have.'

Molly's eyes seemed to question him.

'But,' Sherlock said, and faltered, 'but he is the only person who understands me, the only person I can talk to about... things. I care about him. He cares about me.'

Perhaps he would have said something else, but the sonorous voice of the umpire cut across the pitch then, and the first batsman went to take his place at the wicket. Sherlock squinted; he didn't recognise the boy. He saw John in second place and tried to smile at him. Then, turning back, he seemed to notice Molly Hooper there for the first time, and started visibly.

'Why did I tell you all that?' he said at once, almost disgusted.

'Because...' Molly looked hopeful. 'Because you needed to get it out, and because you trust me?'

'Why would I trust you more than – more than John?' Sherlock asked.

'You haven't told John?'

'I can't.'

'He would understand.'

'Would he?'

'You're forgetting,' Molly reminded him. 'John knows what it is to have a sibling. John knows what it is – not to get on with a sibling.'

Sherlock, startled, cast his gaze back to the cricket pitch. John had just moved forwards to take his place at the wicket. He eventually identified Harry as the backstop. For a minute he regarded them both, and then said:

'John and Harry don't get on?'

Molly just raised one eyebrow and didn't reply.

* * *

At supper that evening, John, celebrating a second consecutive cricketing victory, had found himself at a full table surrounded by rejoicing team members, cheering spectators, and good sports from the girls' school who didn't resent their loss. Sherlock meanwhile ended up sitting elsewhere , with Molly but not speaking much to her, and went up to his dormitory early, not much liking the noisy atmosphere in the dining-hall.

He was absorbed in a book about chemistry when William Farrell returned. The boy looked somewhat distressed. Sherlock shot him a glance but didn't think to ask him what was wrong; however, Farrell, being talkative, told him anyway.

'Ah, I've found you,' he said. 'I thought you might have wanted to get away from it all.'

'I can't abide the aftermath of a sports match,' Sherlock said vaguely.

Farrell looked confused for a moment. 'No, I mean – oh, did you come up earlier? Before it all –'

'Farrell, what's happened?'

The book fell from Sherlock's hands. He was aware that his face looked surprised despite itself.

'Oh!' Farrell waved his hand a little. 'Nothing too tragic – it's just John and Harry. They've had a – well, a bit of a major tiff. It got a bit loud so we had to intervene. You probably ought to know though, because – well, John's upset, and –'

'Haven't the girls gone home?' asked Sherlock, with a glance at the clock.

'Oh, they have now,' Farrell replied. 'John's in the San. with his nose in a hanky. It's not serious. He'll be up soon.'

Sherlock's face contorted. He didn't know how to react. John and Harry, arguing! Last time he had seen them together – but they had written letters since – and to be perfectly honest he hadn't seen much of them in the holidays – and he had always thought that they got on famously! What had happened? Why hadn't he known about it? Why hadn't he – guessed?

'What did they argue about?' he asked, in a voice quieter than he intended.

'Oh, things,' Farrell said. 'I didn't catch too much of it. I think the result of the cricket was the last straw though. Wait – ssh! – I think he's coming.'

There were indeed footsteps on the corridor carpet outside; a moment later the door opened and John shambled in, rubbing his nose, which was still flanked by stray flakes of blood. He tossed a reddened handkerchief into the laundry-basket by the door and went to sit on his bed, only then noticing that the room was already occupied.

'Evening, Sherlock, Will,' he said vaguely.

'Are you all right?'

John looked astonished. He had been waiting for that question to come from William Farrell, who, being normal, would surely be curious and concerned about him. He perhaps hadn't expected to hear it in Sherlock's voice.

'I'm – I'm fine, Sherlock,' he stammered.

'Farrell told me what happened.' Sherlock's voice was gentler than usual, and there was more than a hint of genuine concern in there, a bizarre sound from one so aloof.

John shrugged. 'It was my fault, really. Shouldn't have said – things. I don't know. I don't know how it happened. Anyway, me and Harry –' He didn't need to finish his sentence.

'I hope it blows over soon,' Farrell supplied, filling an awkward silence.

'I hope so,' John said, leaning back onto his pillow.

'I hope so too,' said Sherlock, shooting a glance towards John that was filled with more empathy than he had ever shown in his life before. Perhaps John was curious about this outpouring of emotion, but he did not question it, merely acknowledging it with a grateful but tired smile, and falling asleep where he lay.


End file.
